your The star is gone. by Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Jay Stigall and Lord George will be joining us shortly. I ask that everyone please silence their
cell phones. We'll begin by singing our national anthem. And our national anthem will be sung tonight by senior executive director Patina McKenna. Please join me in saluting our flag.
Oh, say you see by the dawn early light. What so proudly we held
at the twilight lasting whose brush stripes and bright stars through the peril fight
or the ramparts we watch were so gallant. The bones bursting in gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangled ber yet? Or the land of the free
and the home of the brave. >> Wow. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance and be followed by the pledge to the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor
the Texas flag to the Texas. >> Please be seated. >> Miss McKenna, I think we'll be seeing you at the Super Bowl singing sometime. That was fantastic. Really was fantastic.
I want to thank everybody for for joining us tonight. I want to before we go to public comment, I want to acknowledge the great work of Dr. Molinar and her colleagues, teachers, staff, and principles. You all have seen
the latest STAR results. U you'll be getting a full report on the STAR later after the district's had an opportunity to work through all the numbers. But I want to commend Dr. Molinar for for her leadership. You saw uh we're still not where we need to be, but over last year
we saw significant gains, particularly in math and in many schools, couple of schools uh several schools achieved double-digit gains. We had a few laggers, but overall uh under her leadership, um it was a better year for
our kids. So, thank you, Dr. Molinar. Before we begin public comment, I want to explain the purpose of tonight's meeting. It's a workshop. It's not a regular board meeting that the board of education has been has called for the
purpose of community listening training. We're going to be joined by leader from Lonear Governance who is who's going to assist us in developing a plan for u intentional listening campaign o over the coming months.
The training will be facilitated by AJ Crayville, known to many of you, and the rest of the district's governance coaching team. The topics listed on the posted agenda selected for training andformational purposes only. No action
will be taken by the board tonight on any of the items during tonight's workshop. Because this is a workshop and not a regular board meeting, public comment is limited to matters that are specifically listed on the posted agenda. in accordance with board policy beed
local and the Texas Open Meetings Act. I'd like to also share an update to our guidelines regarding signs at at future meetings. This is a new regulation that'll take that'll um become in effect
over the meeting that we have next week. Beginning with a June 23rd regular board meeting, signs will continue to be permitted in the boardroom, but they must comply with the district's updated posted meeting guidelines. Signs must be
handheld, may not exceed 11 by 17 in, and may not be attached to poles, sticks, or other supports. Signs may not obstruct anyone's view in the audience, block aisles, entrances, exits, or safety equipment, or create a safety concern.
or disrupt in any way the orderly conduct of the meeting. If assigned does not comply with these guidelines, um it will be removed from the room. Our next agenda item is public comment. We truly value hearing from the
community. Thank you for turning out tonight to share your views with us. It's an important part of our meetings. I want to share a brief reminder of our process and expectations to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to speak. Public comment is conducted in accordance with Fort Worth
ISD's board policy and the Texas Open Meetings Act and we'll follow those rules in order to manage our our meeting in an orderly and consistent manner. Speakers must sign up in advance through our predetermined process. You'll be called in order and will have up to
three minutes to speak. The presiding officer may make adjustments when needed to help manage time and ensure everyone is heard. At regular meetings, speakers may address any topic. At special meetings, comments are limited to items posted on the agenda. The board listens
to all public comments but does not engage in discussion during this portion of the meeting. When appropriate, responses are limited to factual information or existing policy. We ask that speakers be mindful of student privacy and refrain from identifying students by name as student information
is protected by law. However, a parent or guardian may identify his or her own child if they choose. Speakers are also encouraged to avoid naming individual employees or volunteers and instead address concerns at the campus program
or district level as appropriate. We also ask that concerns about individual employees, students, or other confidential matters be directed through the appropriate district processes rather than during public comment as those procedures are to ensure concerns
are handled in an appropriate and fair manner. Please respect the procedures in place as well as other speakers and audience members and conclude your remarks promptly when your three minutes have expired. Thank all of you for your engagement. Thank you for being here
tonight. We have 11 speakers signed up tonight. The first speaker on the list is Caroline James and she will be followed by Rebecca McGomery.
Thanks. >> Welcome, Miss James. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Uh, for my introduction, I'm going to steal from a friend. Recently, a friend introduced me in this way. Caroline is an educator and administrator who now serves as an educational consultant and coordinates
the literacy roundup initiative, which provides free literacy screenings throughout Fort Worth. She also leads the Fort Worth group centered on the question of what might be possible if an entire city prioritized literacy. I love that introduction and I am leaning into it, but I want you to know that it
represents a few years of growth and a lot of experiences in the city of Fort Worth. More on that in a second. You are about to host community listening sessions. Thank you. These will be an amazing opportunity for you to learn from parents and community members. I want to talk with you about how you
might prepare and who you should invite. Now, back to my introduction. I didn't start out as the leader of the literacy Fort Worth and leading the literacy roundup initiative. I was first a Fort Worth ISTD parent. My oldest son graduated from Pascal High School and
was well served there. I hoped for the same experience for my son Andrew. He was in Fort Worth ISD at Westcliffe Elementary through fifth grade. However, Andrew's experience was not good. He was admitted into special education in his second grade. This is my file of forms
and testing from his four years of special education and all of our meetings in forth ISD. Now, English is my first language. I am literate. I have two master's degrees. I have a job that allows me to attend these lengthy meetings in the middle of the workday. I've been in education for
30 years. And I had trouble navigating special education systems in Fort Worth ISD. Ultimately, I gave up. We moved Andrew to a private school. You cannot afford to have any other families leave Fort Worth ISD. And there's just no reason for that to happen. You can serve
students with dyslexia right here in Fort Worth ISD schools. These listening sessions represent an awesome opportunity for you to hear from parents. And I want you to be sure to invite parents of children who are struggling. Parents of students who are in special education or who are begging for testing so they can be admitted to
special education. Last night, Go Beyond Grades and Literacy Fort Worth hosted a Zoom meeting designed to help parents understand their child's star scores and navigate supports, including special education. 88 parents and their caregivers
attended, children's caregivers attended, and they stayed right up to the end. They had great questions and they engaged with us. They care and they want what's best for their kids. As an educator, I've never met a parent who didn't care for their child or wanted what was best for them. But we have
systems in Fort Worth ISD that make it too hard for parents to partner with their child's school. Please invite parents to these listening sessions who can tell you stories. Stories of requesting testing, stories of art meetings and paperwork that is confusing and that drowns you. I gave up and left.
Please make sure that no one else leaves Fort Worth ISD because I know you can make changes needed to serve these students and their families well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss James. Next speaker is Rebecca McGomery and she will be
followed by Rita Mcuarters. Good evening, Superintendent Lata, President Garren, and members of the Fort Worth ISD Board of Managers. My name is Rebecca McGomery, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. We're so grateful that you're hosting these listening sessions for the community.
Some community members like me are helping with the literacy crisis by being advocates for children identified with dyslexia. I want you to invite me to these type of listening sessions because I've experienced firsthand how hard the AR process can be. As a former
pediatric nurse for special needs children, I've seen how overwhelming the education system can feel for families. But you could physically see their challenges, what these children had to deal with, and they still struggled with accessing additional educational
support, not feeling heard. This year, a fifth grade student I advocated for had two caring, intelligent, literate parents who have been begging the district literally for years to be heard for additional support for their child. But even they needed
assistance to help navigate the art process. His reading scores were within the normal average range. Sounds great, but it was the bottom of the average range.
Right on the border of below average. He's about to go into middle school with a second or third grade reading level. I don't believe any of us would call that normal. What if this was your child? After multiple meetings and conversations
as a community member, I finally asked again, "What is the plan for this child?" We were not leaving without a plan. That's this year. They finally agreed to retest. We finally felt heard.
Once retested, showed a lack of his progress, lack of progress for his age. He's now receiving the support he needs for dyslexia. I ask that you host these listening sessions in a way that you can hear from the community. Please be sure to invite us to tell you about the art
process from a community perspective. We appreciate you all. We are here to support all of you, our students and their families. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss McGomery. Next speaker is Rita McWaters. And Miss
McWaters will be followed by Ambika Chararma. Hi, good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> Could you get a little closer to the mic? >> Oh, I'm sorry. I'm kind of tall. All right. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is
Rita and I'm here on behalf of Literacy Fort Worth. I want to thank you first for seeking uh community input through these listening sessions. My request tonight is simple. As you decide who to invite, please make sure that you include people who work directly with
dyslexia and in special education, not just the leaders, but the families, students, educators, advocates, and community partners who see the challenges up close every day. Literacy Fort Worth testers, counselors, and advocates would be grateful to participate because we're already doing this work in the community. Through our
literacy roundup initiatives, we are helping identify students in Fort Worth who may have undiagnosed dyslexia. The city of Fort Worth has partnered with us to provide screenings through Camp Fort Worth. We're serving students in multiple school districts and right now we're in KO and Thomas Place community
centers and most of those children attend Fort Worth ISD schools. We're only on day three of the literacy roundup and we've already screened 147 students and identified 50 who are at risk for dyslexia. I want to make sure that you're hearing from their parents and the teachers who
are going to serve them next year. This conversation matters because dyslexia is common yet underidentified. National estimates suggest about 20% of people have characteristics of dyslexia or related language-based learning differences. In a classroom of 20 students, that could mean as many as
four students. In Fort Worth ISD, however, only about 6% of students have been identified with dyslexia districtwide. Some schools are reporting rates of 2%. When students are not identified, they're not served. They may be labeled as behind, unmotivated, or having
behavioral issues when what they need is structured literacy, early intervention, and adults who know what to look for. Dyslexia is not some niche issue. It's a core literacy issue. I'm asking the board to invite the parents of students with dyslexia, students who can speak on their own experience, classroom
teachers, dyslexia therapists and specialists, bilingual literacy experts, and community literacy organizations, and dyslexia advocates who are already serving families both in and outside of the school day. These are the people who can help the district understand where
families get stuck, where students are missed, and where partnerships could remove barriers. They can help turn listening sessions into a practical plan for earlier identification, better services, and stronger reading outcomes. Our goal at Literacy Fort Worth is
simple. To help find every child in Fort Worth with dyslexia and help connect those students with services that work. We're finding them. Will you be ready to serve them? We're ready to work alongside with Fort Worth ISD with families, educators, and community partners to address a literacy crisis
that affects not only our schools, but our entire community. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to serve every student in Fort Worth ISD. >> Thank you, Miss McWaters. >> Yes, Dr. >> Dr. Kushner, would you please get the
list of the folks from that group and schedule a meeting with me and you and Mr. Juttery in the next week or two so we can sit and hear their perspectives. It sounds like they're doing a lot for our kids and willing to work with us and we want to definitely partner with them
partner more than what we are now and hear what they have to say from perspectives and how we can help them. >> Thank you Dr. Lacata. Next speak speaker is Miss Chararma and Miss Chararma will be followed by and I apologize if I
mispronounced the name Dallas Macki. Hi, good evening. Um, first of all, thank you for giving them uh time with you. I appreciate that. I guess this is the intent of today's uh agenda listening session. So, thank you for demonstrating how to listen. Um, but I
wanted to speak also on agenda number four. Uh, and I have three points to make. Uh, first point is about the schedule. So, I noticed that you are the schedule is Southwest High School, North Side High School, uh, Dunbar High
School, um, Pas Pascal, and then Ben Brookke High Middle School. I didn't confirm this, but I don't think Ben Brookke Middle High School is part of ISD. Um, so that was confusing as to why we chose that as a location. Um, I would have liked to see a high school on the
western side of the town. So, preferably Western Hills and or uh Arlington Heights, but you know, it's doesn't from a tactics or optics perspective, it doesn't bode well for you all, an entity that is part of the takeover from the
state to not have a listening session um in an area where parents are desperate to be listened and be heard. Um so that's and what I'm referring to is the reassignment of one of the principles there. There had there is a petition more than 50,000 signatures have been
sent and yet when there was time to do listening session I feel deliberately that community was left out. So that's point number one. Um point number two is why I actually got involved. As I mentioned um I think I spoke here on May
3rd if I'm not mistaken. Um on April 28th 137 people showed up. This meeting went on until 1:00 am and they, you know, presented all sorts of arguments and their perspective to not close down the INA um and to not fire teachers. And
yet you all voted unanimously to do that. Exactly that. So, you know, when that happens, people like me who don't have children, you know, so I'm not involved in the school board, but even I felt compelled to come out here and speak and say when 37 people show up,
how can we say that public comments are an important part of the democracy when you all seem to to me seem to have made up your mind on what you want to do. So, that's also not good. If you want to listen, please listen with an intention
to understand and then deliberate. Don't just sit here looking bored. Rosa, number three, um I want to make a request for Dunar High School. That's your um speaking session number five on June 30th. I'm not sure how this
happened, so I will assume positive intent and call it a coincident. So your listening session number five at Dunbar High School is at the same time as Fort Worth City's open house on data centers and it's the same community that's being
impacted. The Black Mountain data center in that area. So I would ask if you could move the Dunar High School meeting to a different day. Thank you. >> Thanks Miss Chararma. I would like to respond to one thing that you said. Ben Brook High School is a Fort Worth ISD
school. So thanks. Appreciate your comments. Miss Mackey, am I pronouncing your name correctly? >> All right. >> And she'll be followed by Sarah Fairley Luna. >> Thank you for allowing me to speak
tonight. Um, I am school nurse for the last 20 years. That hurts to say, a pediatric nurse for the last 35 years. So, I've worked with children for quite a while. Um, and I'm also the mother of three children, all
of who had learning disabilities. Um, I want to thank you for taking the time to do the listening um, the community listening sessions. I hope that it will be productive for you all. In the words
of every teacher that I have ever known, pay attention. pay attention to what the parents say, to what the teachers say, to what people in the community say. It's it's important. I think the parents with children with learning disabilities are
struggling like you would not believe. I would not have known that had I not had kids and tried to go through the process. And I, like Caroline, said, "Forget it. It was too much." And and took my children out of public schools. it was just not worth the
trouble. Um, when I talk to people about the art process, it they make it sound like it's a a battle between school district versus parent student and it it shouldn't be that way. It should not be
so hard. And I actually had lunch with one of my daughter's friends from when she was in school. She has two small children now that are elementary age and she was telling me her son has dyslexia and the process that she's been going
through to try to get him services that he needs, it's taking her it's taken her two years. Two years to get what he needs. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. And he they weren't going to give him
services because he didn't test. he was right on the border and didn't test where he needed to test to get services. But when they went back again and could see that he was not progressing progressing, they did give him services.
All I'd like to say is it it's so important for our kids to learn to read. I think you know that it is the foundation of everything else that they learn. If they cannot read, they can't learn anything else. And until we get every child every service they need in
this school district, we are not finished. We are not finished. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Miss Mackey, for your comments. Next speaker is Sarah Fairley Luna and
Miss Fairley Luna will be followed by Marisol Herrera. Yes, I'm co I'm recovering from a head cold, a cough. Um, I'm here to talk about the listening session and I'm very
grateful you all are doing the training and I wrote down some notes, but I think I'm mostly going to go a little bit more off script because I'm experiencing a little bit of a tension and wanting to show up and authentically partner, you
know, with you. And I believe that your role and your intention to serve students the to the best of your ability is there. I'm experiencing tension as both a parent and a community member and a community leader because sometimes what you say behind the dis isn't how
the act is when you are voting on something when community members do come out and share their voices. So my recommendation at this listening governance training and also as you navigate and move through these listening sessions is that listening
requires action and kind of sitting within that tension. I'm sitting in that tension right now of I'm wanting the best for you because I'm wanting the best for our students. But so far I'm not sure that I can fully trust your
body's decision making. Um, and I say that as a parent with a kid that would be in the district who has special needs. I say that as I know some of you very personally. And um I think that one
recommendation I would have is you already took the name and information for this organization, but inviting other grassroots local organizations into these sessions, having them host some of these listening sessions, seeking out partnership from community
members who don't have the capability to show up here at 5:00. um those parents that of our dual language students, the parents of our refugee students at INA, our LGBTQ students, um please invest your energy in coordinating and
partnering with those organizations because those voices are so important too to our district. That's where I can lend partnership is I do I would really love to offer support in that way as long as it comes with action as long as
there's that level of investment to both listening and the follow through and the action. I think a lot of us are exhausted from just listening session. So, it's the listening, sitting with the tension, and then making a critical decision. But please include those
community members, partner with them, and invite them to host listening sessions where you all come in um and show up and really humbly listen to our community. Um our kids really deserve that. All of our all of our kids. So, thank you for your time.
>> Thank you very much. Next speaker is Mayor Saul Herrera and she'll be followed by Diana Deirorf. Good evening, Superintendent Lica and members of the board of managers. My name is Maris Lerera. I am currently serving as vice president for the Fort
Worth ISD council of PTAs and also vice president for Fort. I'm also a parent of a student in Fort Worth ISD who also receives special education services. So, I come here before you really with a lot at stake for these community listening sessions. I want to thank you for
holding them. Um, I am very glad to see that they're on the schedule. I plan to be at the first one at North Side. Um, that's the community where I spend a lot of my time, where I work. So, I plan to see you guys there on June 22nd. Um, I believe they're an important and very
necessary step as you work to shape the future of our district. I think it's crucial and as you begin this process, I encourage you to ensure that community voice is not only heard but genuinely valued and centered in your decision-m
as the previous speaker said. Um we have gone through rounds and rounds of listening sessions before with other leaders and the frustrating part is that we speak and then we're right back in the same place. So we'd like to see that action connected to it. uh listening to
parents, educators, students, all of the community organizations, the stakeholders who care very deeply about the success of Fort Worth ISD. Over the past 14 years, I have served this district as both an educator and a community organizer. So, I can tell you
firsthand from experience that our community cares very deeply about what's going on in Fort Worth ISD. And we may not always agree on the path forward, but there is far more agreement than disagreement on one fundamental point,
and that is that we want our students to truly thrive and all the sense of that word. I encourage you to think beyond simply inviting the community to the district- hosted meetings. They're important, very much so. Um, but there's
value in going directly into the spaces where people already gather and organize. When leaders enter those spaces with humility and a genuine desire to learn, the conversation just feels different. People feel seen, respected, and more
willing to engage authentically. As chair of the impact mentorship program through the Fort Worth ISD council of PTAs, I want to welcome the opportunity to partner with you in these outreach efforts. We can help you connect you directly with existing community networks, campuses with
established PTAs and campuses that are still building family engagement structures. So, we are strategically poised to be able to connect you with those those structures. I want these listening sessions to succeed and I believe that success will depend on how effectively we all work together to
ensure every community voice has a seat at the table that is meaningful. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Hera. Next speaker, Diana Deerdorf and Miss Deerdorf will be followed by Lon Burnham.
>> Thank you. Good evening. I'm Da Deerorf. I'm a parent to four current students. I'm on the boards of Fort the Fort Worth ISD Council of PTAs and the I am um Terrell PTA. And first I'd like to thank you Dr.
Lacata um you and your team for scheduling the listening sessions we've been talking about in the coming days. And I I want to talk a little bit more uh to echo some of what has already been said. The goals and the guard rails that you
will adopt during this intervention are going to shape our district for years. Under this intervention, this board carries the full authority and responsibility of an elected trustee, including the duty to represent the public interest. I'm very grateful
for the board workshops for the one this evening, the one last time, and the coaching that you're currently receiving on this topic because I think it is paramount to our success. But that duty is best fulfilled when the public has real varied chances to be heard, not
only through public comment here, but through ongoing dialogue in spaces where families already feel comfortable speaking openly. So, I'm asking this board to engage our community beyond the district-led listening sessions. Partners like Fort,
the Fort Worth ISD Council of PTAs, Parent Shield, Literacy Fort Worth, Literacy United, and our Fort Worth ISD special education PTA are already doing this work. And I'm sure I've left off some really other valuable groups. The groups I represent would be glad to
co-host community meetings with you. And I'm confident the others I've named would be, too. And I want to ask something of our community, too. We cannot leave the setting of these goals and guard rails solely in the manager's hands. It is on us to show up
and speak to what matters. How this intervention is shaped will determine two things. How effectively we improve student outcomes for every student in our district and how quickly we return this district to local control. board of managers, you need to create the
opportunities for our community to engage with you. But community, we need you to fill them. I know there are families, particularly on our east side and north side, who have felt ignored, who I have witnessed their voices getting pushed to the bottom year after
year. But I believe this is our chance to change that. This administration and this board are telling us they're willing to listen. So, please show up one more time. speak to what your community needs. Whether it's special ed, bilingual, African-American populations, schools of schools of
choice. Let's give them the chance to follow through. Our district is stronger when we all work together. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Dearor. Next speaker is Lon Burnham. I don't see Representative
Burnham here. Um I we'll call on him if he shows up. Uh, next speaker is Taylor Duncan and she will be followed by our last speaker Dorsy Holland. >> Good evening everyone.
>> I'm not too tall, so if I need to lower it, let me know. Uh, my name is >> Did you tilt the microphone down just a little bit? >> Yeah, that's why I was addressing it. Well, I'll stand on my toes. Uh, my name is Taylor Duncan. I'm the parent to
three soon to be four kids in Fort Worth ISD. I also serve as the president of Dagot Elementary's PTA and the vice president of the Fort Worth ISD council of PTA's impact mentorship program. As this board and as you've heard works to set the goals and the guard rails that
will guide our district through this period of state intervention. I want to thank you like has been said for holding these community engagement for holding community engagement as a core part of that process. I come here today to specifically ask that you engage with the community in listening sessions
beyond the dis beyond those that the district themselves organize and to have again echoing the the previous sentiments have listening sessions with trusted community organizations. My understanding through the community meetings that the state hosted back in
the spring was that the newly appointed board would be hosting and facilitating these and I hope to see that process initiated soon. District ho hosted sessions in schools are really valuable but my worry is that they don't reach everyone. Many families and community members feel comfortable speaking
candidly in spaces heard this before led by people that they already trust. I'd encourage the board to partner with those organizations across our city to co-host those listening sessions, including organizations like you've heard mentioned today. Um, in addition
to neighborhood associations, uh, local congregations and faith communities, other other stakeholders in in our district, each of these groups reaches different corners, uh, of our stakeholders, and putting pulling input only from sessions that the district
themselves organize risks hearing from the same voices repeatedly while missing families and community members who are skeptical of the district-led outreach during a takeover or who simply can't make it to a school building on a week So my ask for the board is to commit to
these three things. Identifying a slate of community partners, providing a forum for consistently exec executing discussions, and building a feedback loop um so that what's heard in those rooms shows up in the in the goals and the guard rails that the board
ultimately adopts. We have a real opportunity to work together, the board, the district, and the community to get our schools back on track for the city of Fort Worth. And I believe that our community wants that. We're asking the board to engage and let us help. Thank you for your time. My calves hurt.
>> Thank you, Miss Duncan. Our next speaker is Torsy Hollands and she will be followed by Representative Burnham. >> Sorry. Good afternoon. Just want to first say that I agree with many much of what was said today. The community meetings are
so important. I also would like to volunteer to host a meeting outside of just what you guys are having at the schools. Um but first of all, my name is Tre Dorsey Holland. I'm lifelong resident of Fort Worth, parent of two beautiful Fort Worth ISD students, and
the director of parent shield Fort Worth. Um, I consider myself a pretty informed parent about knowing what's going on in the district, but I recently had a conversation with four new principles. Um, and we were discussing some of the changes that were being made
at the Elevate campuses. And those changes were new to me. So, I know if they're new to me, there's probably plenty of other parents and community members that they're new to as well, which is why these meetings are so important. I I don't even like to call them just listening session. And I hope
that they're more considered like a round table so that there can actually be some dialogue and not just listening. Um also I am here today to share we know that we know that our babies are struggling in reading like that is the
main thing the reason I'm pretty sure many of you are sitting behind the dice today is because to support with that um in the hopes of transparency we know that star data was just released and we know that there was growth for you know
forth ISD's third grade students however if we talk about forth ISD's black third grade students, we're talking about a decrease. Why is that? That's that's my question. Like those are questions that some of the parents that I'm talking to want to know as
well. Again, in in efforts of transparency, I'm also interested to know like what is the district's plan on sharing out TEA's new PASS grants. So, not sure if you guys are aware of the past grants, but they basically
provide $400 worth of support to families of those third grade students who scored do not meet um on the STAR test so that they can get that supplemental tutoring and support at home. So, my question is like how is the district sharing this information with
parents? Very important. We see what the scores say. Um I just showed you a little bit. 3% is is a gain, but it's not a lot. still will take us quite a long time to get where we need to get. So, sharing these additional supports is going to be not only beneficial to us as a district, but super helpful to
families and parents. So, would love for you guys to share that. And lastly, I know we're talking about guard rails, but just if we could continue to share the data. It's going to be like a year before we see what the changes that you guys are making is going to do, but continue and show how gaps are closing
or not closing is going to be very helpful for parents and families also as we go into these uh months to come. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Dorsey Hollands. Next and last speaker, Lon Burnham. Uh, good afternoon. My name is Lon
Burnham and I am a proud graduate of K through 12 Western Hills High School. I started the first semester when they were on the Arlington Heights campus in annexes. And that was a long time ago, but I've been a big fan of the school district, its shortcomings, and
everything else ever since. And I just would like to think that you guys are going to learn how to really listen. It's a very important skill. It shouldn't cost tens of thousands of
dollars to learn how to do that. My mother-in-law taught me how to listen. She also taught me that, you know, sometimes to make a successful marriage, you just have to not say the first thing that comes to mind. I've been married
for almost 50 years. Congratulations to Pete. I know you just had a recent anniversary and so far it's been pretty good, I think, for both of us. But I am really concerned about uniform voting by this unelected board.
You are not representative of this community if you all vote the same way every time on every issue. Now, I am most concerned about the rise of Christian nationalism and how it is
creeping into this school district. As a proud graduate of Western Hills High School, I am utterly appalled and offended at what the >> Mr. Burnham, I ask that you please stick to the agenda items posted. We're not talking about personnel tonight. So, um,
the agenda is restricted to the listening training tonight. So, ask that you please >> I'm sorry. Say it again, Pete. >> Under you weren't here at the beginning to hear, but our this is a workshop, >> right? >> And comments are restricted to items on
the agenda. Uh, does not include >> Right. And there's one agenda item, right? >> That's right. the listening sessions. >> Listening. I think this dulyapp appointed board by the governor and his minions is not
listening to the public. I expect us to disagree on a number of the decisions you make, but I expect if you're listening, you're not going to vote all of you unanimously on everything that comes down the
street. There has got to be a little dis more discussion in public, showing that you're listening to the public. The last time I was in this room, Dr. Licada went through a great deal of effort, I think, to pretend
like he was listening to the people that have concerns about Fington Fields. I don't know what else to say. I don't think you're listening. I don't think you're paying attention to the public. And if you were, you would not be voting unanimously time and time again. You
would be listening to the concerns that are being expressed by the people out here. I don't >> This concludes our hearing of speakers for this meeting. I want to thank everybody for being with us tonight. Um now I will turn the meeting over to
Dr. Lacata who will introduce our governance coaches. >> Dr. Kushner, would you please uh >> pardon me? Dr. could I say something before everyone leaves and um a couple of speakers spoke
about the importance of not only hosting meetings at on school property. Tonight we're going to discuss not only engagement which is bringing people into school properties but we have a very long list of opportunities to go out and
outreach into the community. So, it's going to be a combination. These first five were scheduled at schools, easiest to get them up and going, but we'll talk tonight about a very long list. And one of the speakers listed, several, I can tell you, everyone that was listed by
that speaker is on this list. So, we appreciate the importance of going out into the community and hearing uh our constituents, hearing our parents, hearing stakeholders where they live. And so we we are going to do that and in
our training tonight we're we're going to work through that in in detail and finalize a plan later. Thank you. Dr. Lata, >> um if I could just add to that, I someone said um if you would please invite us. I want to flip that and say
would you please invite us? I think that is what that is the idea. This is this is this is just the beginning as um President Garren said. Please invite us. If you don't see your name on the the list, let let us know, okay? We really
want to hear from everyone. >> Thank you, Miss George. And I'd like to note that Miss George is is in attendance and make sure the record reflects her attendance. Thank you, Dr. Lacata. Uh I was turning it over to Dr. Kushner
because I wanted him to add that exactly what you said about this is just the start of five, but we're planning more and more and more as we go through it. And uh I will also be doing my own separate tours uh this later in July and August mostly in July and meeting with
the communities in presenting some of the stuff that was asked about uh the elevate campus changes and the data we have and presenting the data constantly next year always having it on a dashboard. I know we have it now. We'll make it more accessible. Uh also some of
the testing numbers. I know our uh dyslexia testing numbers are phenomenal right now as according to the data I received the other day. So, we're getting there, but we need to advertise that we're doing all this and and that's that's part of that's that's on me and my team and we'll make sure it's out
there. But, Dr. Kushner, would you uh mind introducing everyone, please? >> Sure. Good evening. Uh thank you, Dr. Lacata and President Garren. you summarized it perfectly, but I will add that the first five listening sessions
that we put out to the community in June were graciously offered up by those five principles who offered to host the first sessions of our listening sessions where we're going out to the community to engage in the sessions. This was following our last overview training by
AJ where the several of of the board me of managers expressed an interest in us beginning the sessions as soon as possible rather than waiting until school started. So we immediately started scheduling them. These five sessions are open to the public. So parents can choose to attend any of the
five for the first session and we're going to continue these sessions throughout the entire school year. In addition to the goals and guardrails listening sessions, outside of these sessions, we are also scheduling superintendent discovery sessions where
he is going to have the a similar process of listening and engaging with the community. So to reassure our community, these first five sessions are is just the start. They can choose to attend any of the ones that are listed in June. And we have at least two to two
to three of you already scheduled to attend these sessions in June for our first session, our first group of the listening sessions to gain the community feedback on setting the goals and guardrails. So after tonight and we were also capturing what the public was
saying and I've been texting with some of them now to capture what availability they have to host a session for you. And as we continue the meeting tonight to listen to additional feedback that we we received from AJ and his team, we will
continue to reach out to these community organizations to schedule those on your behalf. And thank you to those of you cuz some of you also have reached out to me to say, "Hey, reach out to this group. see if this group is available. So, please continue to do that as well and our team will be happy to help schedule and facilitate the listening
sessions on your behalf. >> So, on Zoom tonight, we have AJ Crarabel, our governance team, along with his team to facilitate the orientation to the listening sessions for goals and guardrails that will begin
on June 22nd. So his team will guide you through what that process looks like. And I know the nine of you are also prepared with several questions for clarification on what these sessions need to look like through the listening process with to our community for
two-way communication so that we're listening and then like some of our members pointed out tonight of the public that we are listening but we're also taking action and showing them that we hear you and here's the action that we're going to take. So we'd like to introduce AJ. Thank you for his staunch
efforts in supporting our district. And please feel free to reach out to us if you have any additional questions, board members, as we start this process throughout the school year. >> Thank you, Dr. Kushner. Will AJ going is he going to appear on the
screen? Okay, >> I hear something. There he is. >> Welcome, Mr. Crayville. >> You're on mute. Are we able to put them on all the
screens, please? >> Okay, he blinked. So, he's not frozen. Can you hear us? >> We can't hear you. >> Communication. >> We still can't hear you, sir. We can't hear you. >> We're checking on our end as well.
I check 1212. >> We hear you but don't see you. >> That's quite the improvement. I'll take it. Now we see you and we hear you. >> All right. >> Uh, good evening. Are you prepared to
begin? >> Hello. >> I think AJ, folks are returning up to the dice, so we'll be ready in 10 15 seconds. Welcome, Mr. Crabel. >> Good evening. >> Sorry about the technical difficulties.
>> Things happen. Um, we have limited time and so I'll jump right into it. Um, I want to spend a little bit of time going over uh what is our purpose, what are we trying to accomplish uh with this uh with this stream of work that the school board is taking on.
Um, and then after we've gotten more clarity about what the purpose is and what the non-purpose is, what are we not trying to accomplish as distinct from what we are trying to accomplish? Uh, then uh we'll transition into some
technical skills around uh accomplishing the things we're trying to accomplish and then we'll transition into logistics around accomplishing the things we're trying to accomplish. Uh but first purpose um school systems exist for one
reason that's to cause improvement to what children know and are able to do so they can live a choicefilled life that they can live a life of purpose of meaning uh of intention of their own creation. Uh this is the reason school systems exist is to cause improvements in what students know and are able to
do. Um, inside of that intention, the job of the school board is to represent the vision and values of the community. This is why school boards exist is that there are simply too many people in the community to all sit around the table and make decisions about all of the things that need to be
made. And so, at some point, someone made the decision. Let's have a group of people who will represent our vision and represent our values on our behalf. We refer to this group as a school board. this is who you are and this role now falls to you. Your job regardless of how
you arrived in the seat that you sit in um nevertheless remains the exact same is to represent the vision and values of the community. Now the vision and values. Uh this is a big heady idea and so I want to unpack this a little bit. Um because when we when we talk about
vision and values we're really talking about a longterm view that we're really thinking about over the next 10 to 20 years. What is the vision of the community? What is it that the community wants its children to know and be able to do? And what are the values of the community over the next 10 to 20 years? What are what are the
values that are non-negotiables that the community wants wants to see honored as the school system goes about conducting its business? And so when we talk about the community's vision and values, this is what we're describing. We're talking about a very long-term a 10 to 20 year
idea of kind of what are those solid and consistent things that live as part of the community's vision, what it wants it students to know and be able to do and that lives as part of the community's values. what are the non-negotiables that have to be honored um as the school system uh makes its march in the
direction of accomplishing the goals. Uh this is why the school system exists and this is why the school board exists. Let me pause for a second. Any questions about why the school system exists or why the schoolboard exists before we transition. And by the way, because of the way you have things set up, I can no longer see you. And so, um sometimes
I'll ask questions. It'll just be helpful to have a verbal response, you know, from anyone just to confirm. Any questions about uh why the school system exists to improve student outcomes to cause improvement in what children know and are able to do so they can live choicefilled lives or any questions
about why the school board exists uh to represent the vision this long-term uh idea about what students should know and be able to do and the values this long-term idea about what are the non-negotiables that should be honored about the school board's obligation to represent the vision and values of the community. Any questions about any of
these points or any any points of clarification that would be helpful on any of these points? >> Hey J, it's Frost. Um, so get the school boards existing. The other thing that would strike me is to hold the administration accountable to the goals that we set in guard rails. I guess
that's that would be all wrapped into the uh definition that you're providing. Is that how we think about that? >> Yeah. Um so what you're asking is what do we mean by represent the vision and values of the community? This is a very appropriate question. So thank you for asking. Uh when we say represent the
vision and values of the community, it is impossible to effectively represent the vision and values of the community without several different buckets of behavior. One of those is you would actually have to authentically listen to the vision and values of the community. If that doesn't happen, there are no
other steps that could possibly repair the failure of the school board to do the core work of representing the vision and values of the community. Um, and so the first step in that process in a value chain of what it is to represent the vision and values of the community, the first step of that is listening. That's what brings us together this
evening. But once the board listens, the next step in representing the vision, values of the community is writing them down. writing down the prioritized version of the vision and values uh to make the vision and values plain. We refer to the written form the written prioritized form of the community's
vision and values as goals and guardrails. That's all they are. Those fancy words that describe this we have written to the community's vision and values. We've written down the prioritized form of those community's vision and values.
We refer those as guard goals and guard rails. And then once that happens, the next step in representing the vision values of the community is actually monitoring progress to ensure that what's been written down is happening in reality. And then the next step is aligning resources uh with those
priorities to make sure that we're actually putting our resources, our time, talent, and treasure school system um um where our words are. And then finally, the last step of that is actually communicating those results back to the community, making that full cycle loop back to where we began, uh,
which is with the community. Um, and so that full value chain of behavior, listening for the vision and values, writing them down, making a plan, monitoring progress relative to the vision and values, and aligning resources with the vision and values, and then communicating with the community. Here's the evidence of how uh
we are being stewards of the community's vision and values as described in the goals and guardrails. It is that entire value chain that we refer to as the board representing the vision and values of the community. Should the board fail in any one of those activities that it
fails in the entirety of its core function which is to represent the vision and values of the community. Is that responsive to your inquiry? >> Yeah. Yes. Super helpful. Thanks. >> Other questions about what is meant by the school system only exists to improve student outcomes. There's a whole lot of
things the school system does, but there's only one reason the school system exists, and that's to cause improvement to what children know are able to do, so they can live choice field lives, uh, lives with their own meaning, lives with their own intention, uh, that they can take care of themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Um, or what is meant by
this idea that the job of the school board, the reason the school board exists is to represent the vision and values of the community. Any other questions, reflections on either of those points before we transition? All right, seeing and now I can see you all. So, um when I ask questions like that, if you have anything, just wave at
me so I can know to pause rather than to keep on moving. Um and then I'll certainly let the uh board chair manage the day. Uh but that will just let me know when I need to pause. So that is the purpose uh that the board has to attend to. And tonight we're here
to talk about the very first step in the direction of that purpose which is the listening part. U the listening is essential because you all in fact do not know what the vision and values of the community are. What you probably have some really powerful insights into are what are the vision and values of people
that you've met? What are the vision and values of people that you've worked with that you've connected with? What are the vision and values of individuals in the community that you've interacted with? But what none of you have done is systematically gone through and said, "How do we get grab some version of a
representative sample of our overall community and engage in really deep and intentional listening around their vision for what students should know and be able to do and around their values uh that have to be honored along the journey toward that vision. Uh that is work that you all simply haven't done in
this capacity. And so while you may have keen insights into where small segments of the communities vision and values, none of you hold purchase on what is the collective vision and values of the community. It's for that reason that you actually have to go out and harvest that. It won't just show up on your
doorstep. It certainly won't emerge in the form of uh public comments like the the public commenters are not a proxy for listening to the vision and values of the community as a whole. It's a good start. It's great to hear the people who actually do have the privilege and the
wherewithal to make it there, but your obligation extends well beyond that. Your obligation is to listen to the vision and values of the community as a whole, not only to just a few isolated segments of it. Um, and public comments is always going to be a very select
group. Uh so that means when it's time to listen for this long term, this 10 20 year vision and values of the community, you have to go beyond who shows up to you. You have to extend that invitation more broadly. We call those engagement sessions where you are hosting sessions
and inviting the public at large to come and visit. But you have to even extend beyond that into what we refer to as outreach sessions where you are working with community partners to schedule times for you to go to meetings that are already existing to partners that are already hosting gatherings and conduct
listening there. Um, and so this is what it means uh to listen for the vision and values of the community is that you're going to have to go out proactively um and both in the form of engagement sessions or where you're opening your doors and people coming to you and in the form of outreach sessions where you're going to others going to their
meeting that you will have to do both of these things as parting. What else is important in this is that the first phase of this is purely listening. So what often happens in these situations whether appointed or elected officials we work with both all
across the country u whether it's appointed or elected officials what often happens is under the guise of listening people will show up and campaign that is not what you will do uh your task is to show up and authentically listen and we're going to spend a lot of time today engaging in
what does it mean uh for a group of public officials uh school board to authentically show up and listen and so while there are a bunch of different things that you could do that aren't listening. We're going to dial into a very narrow set of activities that are
listening. Um just one piece of that to give you an example. Um when you all go out, it won't be for the benefit of you to speak. It won't be for the benefit of you to be heard, for the benefit of you to share your ideas, for you to try to convince people through oration that you
somehow can be trusted. All you will be doing is listening and documenting what is said. Uh that is the nature of the deep and authentic listening. There will be a time for back and forth and all that, but in this first trunch, the function is that you all need to get
deeply baptized in the vision and values of this community. And that means you just need to be silent and listen. And so this first phase of listening is actually different than frankly what most people in your community are used to um from public officials. Normally public officials show up and they're
here to pitch you something. That's not what this is. This is authentic listening. that the task is just to simply create for people the experience of being heard, to write it down, uh to to hear it for yourselves, to begin to internalize all the things that you're hearing. Now, this is important because
you're going to have a lot of different listening sessions. Um, and what you really want is to have the net result of all of those collected. Um, and so as you all are listening, you won't just be listening because, oh, this sounds good. Thanks for sharing. You'll actually be documenting, writing down everything
that uh that you hear and then collecting it all together. So, two of you will go here, two of you will go there, two of you will go here. But all of that will be pulled together in one document that is just the raw unfiltered unedited version of everything that you
hear in the listening. Once you have done that, then the next step in the listening process um is then you start into the meaning making like what what does it all mean and and what are the things we're hearing most commonly? One of the challenges uh that
come up um is that often people who will be sharing only hear the things that are kind of necessary and important to them. they they won't have the benefit of going to all these different sessions like you all are going and so they will be touching one piece of the elephant
and they won't be aware of all the other pieces of the elephant. So there's some meaning making that has to be done both for your benefit but also for theirs so that they can have a sense of what is the totality of what was heard. And so after you all have done this listening and you produce a document that is the
raw unedited transcript of here's exactly what we heard. The next thing that you have to create in the listening process is a summary document that is really looking at a a topical analysis that says what is the frequency with which we heard different topics. Um, and
this is an important part because you're going to hear a whole lot of things. Much of it will be contradictory. You'll hear people say absolutely never do this and you'll hear other people say absolutely go do this. Um, and what you really need to do to start to get some signal inside of all that is try to
identify what things are we hearing with the greatest frequency. What are the topics that are just coming up over and over and over again all across? Because remember, your job when you're adopting goals and guardrails isn't to try to represent every single idea of the community's vision and every single idea
of the community's values. There's too much. There's too much. And so the goals and guardrails aren't intended to be all things to all people. People will be disappointed by your goals and guardrails because it will be a very narrow prioritized set of the community's vision and values. You could pretend you could make people happy and
pretend that you will can have a hundred different goals and 100 different guardrails and that will make you more popular and more people will like you. It's like, "Oh yes, I saw all my things written down." But this will be purely pretending for your own self-satisfaction and self-preservation. It won't actually be serving children. If we're going to be serious about
leadership, this does require that a after you listen for the vision and values of the entire community that there is a summary that says what are the topics that we hear most frequently that we're going to use as the basis of setting goals and guardrails. And we we can't pick a 100 different topics. Our
coaching is to pick one, two, or three different things to set goals about. One, two, or three different things to set guard rails about. And so you will hear thousands of different ideas. And the feeling that people ought to have is, well, I gave them this idea that they should do this and that's not one
of their goals. So that means they didn't listen. That that's the evidence that I told you they don't listen. You all need to be prepared for that argument. And what's happening in that moment is they see one piece of the elephant, but they don't see all the other pieces of the elephant because they didn't go to all of the listenings that you all went to. It's your
obligation to make that visible, to make the totality of the listening more listenable, understandable, and discernable. And the way you do that is you take all that raw listening and you have it condensed down to a 1 to five page uh frequency uh analysis of what
are the things that we've heard the most often. What are the uh what are the prioritized version of all that we heard? What what's the prioritized version of that? So that's the next step of the process is you'll have that one to fivepage document that says here here's the summary of all the things
that we heard. anyone should be able to look at that document and had they attended as many sessions as you all did, it's like, yeah, actually this feels like a faithful representation. Yeah, that's what I heard at all the different sessions as well. Um, and so it's not about generating agreement. It's not
about making people happy, uh, cuz you won't. It's not about generating agreement because you won't. Uh, it's not about coming up with a goal that will satisfy everyone because you won't. This is about setting priorities that allow you to focus your resources in such a way that you can maximize benefit
for students in your school system. That's what you are out to accomplish. But that requires prioritization. And and that that obligates you all to explain of all the things we could have prioritized. Why do we prioritize this set of things as opposed to that set of
things? And so those are the first two steps in listening. You will go out and do all the listening and you'll have a raw transcript. And then from that there'll be a once all the listening is complete there'll be a 1 to five page summary of that that says here's the frequency analysis of all the things that we heard. Here are the things we
heard the most commonly across the entirety of our community. Once you have that then that's when you have the raw materials to actually begin the next step which is identifying potential goals and potential guardrails. So let me pause there. I've talked about these
three major next steps in the process. The first is doing is comprehensive listening, not talking, listening, cap, capturing that transcript, turning that into a 1 to five page frequency uh summary of what what we heard and then
using that to turn into the one, two, or three goals, the one, two, or three guard rails that you would then adopt for the next five years to guide and prioritize resource allocation for the school system. What questions do you have about any of these three steps? Uh
AJ, this is Jay. How you doing, man? >> All right. All right. >> Good deal. Hey, so uh something's, you know, just not sitting well right now and it's it's uh when you talk about the raw data and you talk about uh what we'll hear most frequently, how do we ensure that the that the sample size,
the data that we're that we're that's going into this um is is going to be equitable, right? So, how do how do we how do we ensure that we've heard from every community that our district represents? If and if that's that's going to be talked about later, that's fine. But that's that's what's kind of
giving me a little bit of pause right now. >> Yeah. That that's because that's your job. Um and so you should have pause. Um if you do a poor job of your job, then you won't have done that job and people will rightly be critical of it. Now, I want to distinguish people going to be critical no matter what you do. This is
this has nothing to do with you being an appointed board. This is just you being public officials. public officials uh sign up to absorb the critique um the joy and the discontent of their communities. If you can't handle that and say thank you at the end of that,
resign your post. Um and so you're not going to please everybody. Um and that's not your job. But you do have an obligation to show that you were thoughtful in your execution of your duties to represent the vision and values of the community. you have a obligation to show receipts that
demonstrate here is the extent that we went to to try to uh make sure that we were authentically representing the vision values of our community. So the question you're really asking is about the the set of listen who all was included in the set of listening that
turned into that transcript and that's what I'm saying is that is your job. So part of what we'll talk about this evening when we get into the logistics of it is and you all have already received this so you already know where I'm going with this. The logistics of this is that you all as a as a school
board will have to make the decisions about what are all the engagement sessions all the sessions that we will host and we'll invite people to come to us and what are all the outreach sessions sessions we will go out to partners and you know places in the community where there already meetings uh and that will invite us in and we'll
ask our questions there. You all will have to make decisions about what is that total list. Is that five sessions? Let me give you a hint. The answer to that is not no but hell no. Um is it six sessions? Is it 10 sessions? Is it 15? This is this is the discernment you all
have to bring. I I can't tell you uh what the correct answer is. This is literally why you all sit on that deis as you all will have to make the decision. There is not a firm science here. This is discernment. And so you all will have to use your collective discernment to decide when have we
actively gone out and done a sufficient quantity of listening um in a sufficient set of places. Some of that you'll make some pretty decent guesses about on the front end because that will live in how many different sessions you host. Are you hosting five, 10, 15, whatever. But
some of that you frankly won't know until you get into it. Uh you may find I'm give give you a tangible example. I think of another district. Uh it wasn't until they got halfway through their listening where they realized that there were some major gaps in who had participated. And so they went back and
added uh this the school system I'm thinking of right now has a large Spanish speaking population. And when they looked at their data, they realized that population isn't really represented in the data. And so they made the decision that any effective school board would make the same decision that you
all would make when you run across something like that. Our listening is incomplete. And what it means is uh we need to spin up some additional sessions to do some additional listening. And so you will try to account for that on the front end. You will plan with an intention for this is a plan for how we
would conduct the quantity quality of listening, the inclusivity of listening that we believe will represent the vision of values of the community. That's what the plan will be. But plans are imperfect. And so as you execute the plan, if you see there's a significant
gap, a significant missing, then each step of the process, you all have to say, okay, well, have we done sufficient listening to proceed? If the answer is yes, then we proceed. If the answer is no, then we need to we need to spin up some additional supplemental listening, make sure we fill in whatever gaps we've
experienced uh in our participation data, um, and then continue. So you will design a plan on the front end to try to solve for your exact consideration. And that is literally y'all's job. Um, however, know that this is not the last bite at the apple. That as you implement, uh, you'll have opportunities
to reflect on this. Um, and in fact, but when we get time to, uh, have the dayong session for actually setting goals and guardrails. Literally, one of the very first questions we ask is, has the board done sufficient listening to proceed? And if the answer is no, we stop. We've
scheduled an eight-hour workshop to set goals and guardrails. And if the board actually says, "No, the listening isn't complete." Then we stop the eight hour work session and say, "Okay, well then we'll have to reschedule this uh right now. What we need to do is change the topic to what additional listening do we
need to do?" And that's actually happened with some boards that they got all the way to what they thought was the finish line and then had to retool. So that that is not unusual. However, you want to be diligent and so ideally the plan that we developed starting this evening u is a plan that does
authentically encompass all the voices that you want to hear from. But again know that later on if you feel like you've missed the mark in some way there's additional opportunity. Now that being said you were on the clock. I don't know if anybody remembers this but we had this conversation last time about um by when
do you need to have these goals and guardrails adopted. Does anybody remember that? And can somebody explain to me by when you need to have goals and guardrails adopted and why? >> I remember the date being October. >> Yep. >> Trying to remember the driver. >> And it was because that's when we need
to start on the next year's budget. >> Budget, right? Budget. >> Yep. If if the community's vision and values are going to drive resource allocation, then you actually need to have the vision and values the the prioritized version of those the goals and guardrails in the hands of
administration in time for them to actually use those in the development of the next resource allocation plan, the budget. And so you all you all are in fact on a clock. You do not have infinite time. Or I should say differently, you are welcome to take until December if you want. But in that
moment, what you're saying is that if we take until December of 26 to complete our listening, then what we should reasonably expect is the result of that listening won't have a huge impact on the SY 2728 school year. It'll really
kick in in the SY 2829 school year. I would strongly caution you against such a course of action. that is not that is not um effective representation of the vision and values of the community for them to wait that long for their voice to actually begin to be realized in the
prioritization and the resource allocation and so you could take longer. We strongly coach against it but then that means you are on the clock that you have a very finite amount of time. Now, realistically, again, to work back from that, if you have to have it adopted by October, my recommendation is you slated
for adoption in September so that you give yourself a little bit of extra time if you need it. But if you're going to try to adopt in September, that means you probably needed to have put some pen to paper at absolute latest, early uh August. But if you're going to put pen
to paper to try to develop rough draft of goals and guardrails in early August, that means you have a very limited window of listening. Um, so you can compress some of that on the far end, but then that just means everything has to go very very smoothly. Um, and you
have less wiggle room on the back side. Um this is actually normally I would chastise a little bit the idea of the administration setting uh listening sessions kind of being proactive about that because I in this
process it really needs to be the school board that is completely and blatantly out front on this uh rather than have it in any way look like the staff is out front. But you all specifically addressed this point in our last conversation that you all wanted to move fast because time the clock was ticking.
And so that's why you all authorized your administration, hey, put some things on the calendar now. This won't be the whole show, but at least we'll start we'll get moving in June rather than waiting and not getting started until July. And so, uh, it is a little
bit abnormal for your, uh, staff to be out front like that. In this case, they did that at your behest because you understand that you are in a very tight time crunch. October sounds like it's far away. It is not. Other questions about these uh three first three steps of listening that you conduct this
listening, you create this raw uh transcript. You uh then have that summarized into a frequency analysis and then you use that to try to identify what are the goals and guardrails we're going to site. Uh any other uh questions or reflections about that before we move
on? Yeah. >> AJ, this is Tennessee. Um you hit on something logistically that was really my question which is what is staff's role in these listening sessions. Uh and I looked at kind of some of the feedback that we were asked to work on and you know at the intro. I think one of the
things that I've struggled with a lot is you know me learning and the public I guess understanding as well the difference between operations and and you know board work and superintendent and staff work. and if you know with staff there I think it's going to lead to a lot of individual concerns which is
you know those need to be heard those need to be addressed through the proper channels but we're looking for the bigger picture issues and letting the public understand that you know we're going to take and synthesize and look for the common themes so we can best represent everyone's vision and values but what role does staff have in that
and how does that bleed over uh in terms of operations issues versus governance issues? Yeah, this is a really uh a really important question because what's invariably going to happen is that people in your community are feeling pain right now about situations that are
important to them right now. They're not showing up thinking about vision and values 20 years down the road, 10 years down the road. They're experiencing the reality of disappointment and frustration with your school system as it exists today. And those people have every right to be heard and for us to believe they will be.
However, your job as a governing body isn't to solve uh isn't to go into a classroom and try to solve the problem for each person who shows up. So, if somebody shows up and says, "Hey, my kid doesn't have a textbook in their classroom." Your job isn't to literally show up in
that classroom and scr around and try to find a textbook for the kid. That that just doesn't make sense. There's not enough of you to accomplish that. You would do a horrible job of that. Not because you're bad people, but just because there's very limited number of you and that's not it's not your day job and so you aren't in a position to do
that all day every day. Fortunately, there are people who are in a position to do that all day every day. We refer to them as staff. And so just the pure logistics of how do we solve problems for children begins to bifurcate uh the role that you play from the role that
staff plays. Um the role that you play is really about about how do we represent the vision and values of the community as the owners of the school system which is distinct from the role that staff plays which which is how do we represent the vision and values of
the community in their role as customers of the school system. Like this idea of people in their role as the owners of the school system is very distinct from their role as customers of the school system. This actually takes us back to the conversation we had last time about Miss Johnson. Y'all know I be going hard on Miss Johnson,
but Miss Johnson actually plays dual roles. When I first showed up on her front doorstep and she's asking me about a stop sign, is that Mrs. Johnson speaking in the voice of a customer of the community uh of the city or an owner of
the city? >> Customer. This is Larry. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a customer concern. Um so when she says I want a stop sign, this is you know this is something where she is looking to get a specific value out of the city. Um that specifically addresses a need that she
experiences but it doesn't necessarily you know this isn't necessarily something that uh acrru to the benefit of every single resident in the city. This is really accrud to her benefit. That that's what really distinguishes that this is a customer service issue rather than an owner service issue. Now,
when we pushed on that, we pushed on that and we got to what is what's the value underneath the issue and Miss Johnson identified, well, the value is safety and then we checked in with all the other neighbors up and down the block and said, yeah, safety is a real concern here. In that moment, we haven't
tapped into the voice of people in their role as a customer. We've really tapped into their voice in their role as an owner. And so this is the challenge that school boards everywhere across the country face is that there is an ownership voice and that's where I'm thinking about what is the largest
systemic phenomenon. What what is what are the vision and values writ large not just my own personal issues and then there's my role as a customer. That's where I'm really thinking about just my specific issues and I'm not thinking about how they connect to the larger hole. I'm just I'm just trying to get my
my needs met, the needs of my kids met. Um, and again, purely because of expertise and and the logistics of it, you as schoolboard members are the absolute worst possible customer service reps in the school district. Why do I say that you all are the absolute worst
possible customer service reps in the school district? Why do I say that? Is because you all are horrible humans. Why Why do I say that? >> I I like to think of it. I'm not the subject matter expert at this stuff, right? When it comes to the operation of the school district. Yeah. >> Yeah. One reason you all are, you know,
horrible uh customer service reps cuz you don't know what's going on with little AJ cuz you aren't in the classroom with little AJ every day. You are not the best person to be making decisions about what happens to just little AJ specifically. Who would be the ideal customer service rep to help make
that type of decision? >> Teacher. >> Yeah. And hierarchically and organizationally, there's no one further away from the classroom than y'all. Period. for this reason. You know, it's a matter of expertise, but it's also a matter of proximity organizationally.
You all are the worst customer service reps in the entire district because if what we want is for the problem for little AJ to be solved to be solved effectively, fairly, equitably, then that really needs to be solved in the classroom level by the person who has the expertise to do so. Um, and so that
is what helps distinguish customer service really looking at what is the issue at the micro level. um that you know is really about value creation for you know one family or small group of families or you know one classroom or one school as opposed to owner level
issues which are thinking about what is what is true uh for our system as a whole. You know what what are we trying to create as a long-term value. Uh customer service issues normally have a need that is in the here and now and there's an immediiacy to them and that needs to be attended to. owner service
issues. Again, they have that long life cycle that that 10 20 year vision that they're that they're pursuing. Your work is best suited to owner service. It is not well suited to customer service. One more point on this because a question about equity was
raised earlier. There is a real danger from the nine of you deciding that you want to go out and be customer service reps, which by the way, if you do this, you're going to be really popular. Like people like, "Oh, this is you got to call this one board member. This is the righteous board member. This is the one. They'll they'll get it done. They'll show up in the classroom and they'll get things done
for you. You will be beloved by Miss Johnson or acolytes if you decide to go out and be customer service reps. However, there's this one small detail. And the detail is that you will only be customer service reps for the people who know how to access you. And that ain't
every family in the school system. So the moment you choose to be customer service reps, what you're really saying to the system is we don't exist to represent the vision and values of the community, we repres exist to represent the vision and values of the community individuals who have access to us. And
the moment you do that, any fakery about believing in equity is out the window because you no longer actually believe in that. You don't subscribe to that. You subscribe to the to, you know, whoever has access, whoever has privilege, whoever has resources. That's who we care about and that's who we attend first. This is the inescapable
failure that comes from people whose job is to represent the vision values of the owners deciding that you're going to show up in the classroom and try to uh represent the the customer service needs rather than focus on the owner service needs. And so distinguishing between these two is really important because
you don't want to create this inequitable framework where it is only the connected who get access uh to justice in your school system. You actually want to create something entirely different. But that does mean you have to behave differently. So zooming back to your listening sessions,
what happens is par, let's ask the trick question. Parents, are they owners of the school system or are they customers of the school system? This is a trick question. >> They could be both. >> Yeah, >> they are absolutely both.
And so, how will you know if you are hearing them speak in their role as an owner versus their role as a customer? How will you how will you know the difference? >> I think trying to understand the scope of their concern if it's something that's individual to their kid, their class, their school, or is it something
that could affect every child in the ISD? Yeah. And so when they're speaking with that breadth of this is about, you know, how we repair systems, even if it doesn't work out for my like this actually won't be great for my kid, but this will be great for our system as a whole. And so I think we should do that.
That's really the voice of an owner of the school system rather than just the voice of a customer. The voice of a customer is, hey, look, my kids needs are not fairly being addressed and they deserve to be addressed to meet. You heard that from some of your public comment speakers. They're like, you know, there is a real need is right here. It is right now. um and these
particular students demand justice and they're right. However, that is a customer service need that that needs to be handled by the ex those with expertise and who are closest to those children to do so. So, what will happen is in your listening sessions, you will
hear both. You will hear community members show up speaking with the voice uh of an owner and you will hear community members show up speaking with the voice of a customer. And that's them doing their job. they they are doing exactly what they need to do. But it
does mean that when you have the full transcript, you all will have to engage in discernment. Okay, which of these are uh owner service issues? Okay, then then we're already set. Which of these are customer service issues? And we have to use our discernment to try to figure out
what is the value underneath the customer service issue. Um and then okay, so let's hold on to that. And so, you know, if we hear five people say, "Hey, safety is important." Okay, that sounds like a uh that sounds and they're talking about the district as a whole, that sounds like an owner service is.
But if we hear somebody say, "Hey, we need a stop sign uh next to this school uh because cars are driving by the school too fast." That sounds more like a customer service issue. But you'd have to be in discernment say actually, but the vision and values underneath of that is also about safety. And so, we've
actually uh we it's not just the five people who said safety was important. It's actually those people plus this person who mentioned a stop sign who's that the cons the value under that is also safe. So we've really heard safety six times not just five times. Um that is the level of discernment that you all
will have to engage in that goes from this raw transcript unabbridged of everything that you heard exactly the way you heard it down to this frequency analysis and said you know when it comes to the vision of values what did we hear the most often is that you all will have to be in discernment and translate some
of those customer service issues into what is the vision and values underneath those so that we can try to tabulate that accurately. This is not science. This is definitely more art. Uh but the artisans of this are the people who've been selected to represent the vision and values of the community. That would
be you. It's your judgment call that will help uh far it out this level of detail to figure out what really are the highest frequency items of the community's vision and values that are brought up. And so yes, to come all the way back to your original inquiry, it's like are we going to hear about both
owner uh issues and customer issues? Yes, you're going to hear about both. And that is perfectly okay. It just means for the owner service issues, you're already ready to go. For the customer service issues, there's a little bit of translation to figure out, okay, what is the vision of value underneath of this? And so that way you can make sure that uh if you hear five
people talking about stopides and five people talking about systemwide safety, you've probably actually heard 10 people talking about safety. Uh and it's important for you to know that. Uh but that's a discernment you will have to apply after this first round of listening is done. Uh
so one other piece to that is sometimes what B school boards will do um and I I feel like you were hinting at this in your comment. Sometimes what school boards will do is they'll ask like we are the only person engaging the listening. The staff is not doing the listening. The staff is not taking the
notes. You're taking the notes because you're the one who has to be in communication with your community, not your staff for this for this assignment. Uh the staff won't be running the meeting. You'll be running the meeting. It's your meeting. Uh it's your job to be directly connected. Um but you may make the decision to ask for some staff
to be present. If there are pressing customer service issues that community members showed up and they actually don't want to be heard on this, they actually just want their customer service issue handled immediately. Then it's sometimes helpful to have a staff member press like, "Okay, um that sounds a little bit different than what we're doing here, but we have somebody here
for you. Uh you know, um you Mr. Jackson, you know, could you uh visit with this community uh member who has a customer service issue that they'd really like some support with? Um and so sometimes that will happen and I've seen boards handle it that way that they will just ask the superintendent, hey, could you have some staff here? So, if there
is an urgent customer service issue, in addition to us capturing it um in the full record, uh we also want to make sure that if that person came thinking that they were going to talk to customer service reps and then wound up talking to y'all instead, it's helpful to actually have a legit customer service rep available for them to talk to. And
so, that's a decision that you all have to make if that's if that's how you want to run these sessions. Uh but that's that's not an uncommon direction that uh that boards have gone. >> AJ, I want I want to go back to uh Mr. Walker's uh question cuz it was important and I think it's u needs a
little bit of clarification from your perspective. We want to do this we want to do this right >> and from our perspective I was going to have one member there to open up open up the uh session and obviously some security there but also to just be
notetakers and that's it. uh no other staff members because if we inundate with staff, we're going to have people talking more about customers rather than owners and so forth and so on. I really I really want to make sure can I have Dr. Kushner confirm our plans and schematics to make sure that that's
suitable. >> Uh that is >> that is incredibly thoughtful. Definitely don't do that. Um you will definitely need staff who are present in your facilities obviously to open the facilities to you have the facilities available and all that. That would be
it. Handle all of the logistics of having the space be available. The board members need to have there needs to be no intermediaries between the board and their collection of the uh of the voice of the community. And so what I am literally saying is that it will be the board members themselves. This is why
there will always be two or three of you uh present for each of these listening sessions. It' be the board members themselves who are going out two by two. one is uh one is asking the questions and then you just kind of facilitating as people share it while the other is writing down uh what's being said and
then you'll switch off or type like I might prefer to type um but actually our coaching is literally that nothing be between the board and the community that it has obligation to listen to and so it is a huge benefit to the board for you to have people there that do not huge
benefit definitely don't do that uh definitely let the board do the job. And in fact, uh, this will make sense when we get to it a little bit later because we're going to practice and role play a little bit of this. Uh, but in fact, one of the things that u I often see board members do in these moments, uh, is, you
know, Miss Johnson will show up and she'll say, "Hey, you know, I want to stop sign." And then board will say, "Okay, hold on, M. I want to make sure I wrote this down and I heard you say, "I want to stop sign. Did I hear you correctly? Uh, did did I write that down on the record correctly?" Yeah. Or did I type that up correctly? Yeah. Excellent. Uh, who will be the next to share? And the next person will share is like, "Oh,
uh, I don't want to stop signing a speed bump." All right, hold on. I heard you say you want a speed bump. Do did I capture that correctly? All right, excellent. Thank you. And keep it moving. And so there's this real deep authenticity where the community needs to experience that their board members are doing the hard irreplaceable work of
listening and capturing what they have to say. Remember, this is not a two-way dialogue scenario. This is not like the board members are then reflecting, "Oh, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I I think a stop sign is the right thing. I think a speed bump is the wrong." No, this is not the time for that. This is purely listening. There will be a time for the two-way dialogue that that comes later
in the process, but at this point in the process, it is purely capture and just to minimize any kind of variance of interpretation. Our coaching is for the board members themselves to literally capture uh the vision and values of their community
themselves. Uh this creates a lot of extra work. It creates a burden on the board members. Fortunately, you only do this once every 5 years. Um and so it is a burden uh that must be borne. Somebody has to bear it. Uh our coaching is the board should bear it themselves. Uh not delegated to staff.
>> AJ, I brought this up last time, but um regarding recording the comments. >> Yes. Also appropriate. >> Okay. There's some amazing transcription AI tools for summary and that sort of thing. So I would think if we could get all of these recorded that could be a
another way to capture it. >> Oh, absolutely. I would not let that be a replacement for what I just said. >> So do note your community needs to experience you all doing the work of capturing the vision vision and values of the community of your community has
absolutely no compelling reason to trust that any of the nine of you are dialed in to the vision and values of the community. That's not just you. That's also true of electeds as well. I had to go out and earn, you know, trust in my community, uh, just like you'll have to
go out and as an elected official, just like you'll have to go out and earn it as an appointed official. But the community has no compelling reason to believe that the nine of you collectively are dialed in. You need to demonstrate that. Um, and so certainly use technology. Let that be a backup so
that if you miss something that you can make sure that the transcript is accurate, all that. But don't miss this sacred opportunity to be in this intimate listening uh process with your community and make sure that it is clear that you doing the listening. Cuz here's the thing, community members understand
this natively. What gets written down in the formal record may or may not be what is in your brain. When they have heard when they you have demonstrated them that you heard what they said that you wrote it down that you captured it accurately. At minimum they know that at one point
what I said literally was in the mind of my board members. That just creates a different experience of being heard than knowing that it was recorded. because I don't know if any of y'all going to go back and listen to the recording, but I will know in the moment if you actually listen to the words I said. And so
that's why I said go ahead and use as a backup. I think that's a great idea, but don't let that be a replacement for creating for your community a clear understanding that you all are prepared to do the hard work of listening to their vision and values. AJ.
>> Yeah. Just in continuing the the line of discussion that that Tennessee started. Um the we're going to go into every one of these meetings whether we're meeting with the Rotary Club or we're meeting
with parents or we're meeting with LUAC or we're meeting with NAACP the same questions. And so they're they're going to be owner questions >> and it's um and that that's an important part of this is they're owner questions and so we're asking the questions and
we're listening to the answers. So >> yeah, >> if if we ask um customer questions, we're going to get customer responses. But it's when we put together this bank of questions, you know, we need to strive to have owner questions that we
can get the vision and values of the community. >> And uh that's I think some of the concerns about spending time trying to fix problems will be avoided by keeping things at that vision and values level
and and not at the the tactical level. >> Absolutely. If you went in and said, "What kind of what is your 10-year vision, you know, for what children should know and be able to do in Fort Worth ISD?" You're going to get a very different answer most of the time from uh what is the thing that's troubling
you at your child's school this week. >> Um you are going to calibrate your listening around the the first example. You're not going to calibrate your listening around the latter example. Um what's interesting is the latter question is going to be asked. You heard
your superintendent say, "Hey, I'm going to go out and do a bunch of listening. He's not going to be doing owner listening." What's he going to be doing? >> Customers. >> Yeah. And and here's and here's the challenge for the community is that for the community's perspective, they're going to be like, "Well, didn't we just do listening last week?" Um and so it's
going to be really on you all, the board on one hand and the administration on the other to make it crystal clear. Here's the exact nature of the listening we're doing and how is distinct from the nature of the listening that superintendent's doing. we're doing listening to to craft a fiveyear uh set
vision for this board for this community that is connected to the larger 10 20 year community uh vision. That's what we're doing listening for. The superintendent is listening for what's working and what's not working today. Uh these are two completely different things you were listening for and don't expect the community to show up at the
right meeting at the right time and ask the right thing. Like you're going to have people who show up at both, you know, trying to connect to the other. That's perfectly fine. The community is doing what they need to do. They're doing their job. It's just going to fall on you to then translate uh and try to calibrate for the fact that uh people
showed up with uh customer level concerns when you were trying to gather owner level insights and vice versa with the superintendent that he'll show up listening for customer level concerns and he will probably hear a number of owner level insights. it's on him to
filter those owner level insights back to you all and it's for you all to filter those customer level insights back to him. Uh one of the ways that you could do that is you could just automate it by saying superintendent could you have somebody present and as they hear customer concerns could they write it down and connect connect with that
person and then that problem is that problem is solved for you all and administration is handling it directly but if you don't choose to do that you you will need to come up with some mechanism to feed customer service concerns cuz like if people are feeling pain right now then there does need to be a system for their customer service
issue to be addressed right now. you all are just the worst people to do it. Uh you need to have a system for how do we get this filtered to the best person to do it so that whatever that pain point the community member is feeling that gets addressed uh because it won't be you all addressing it and so like how do
we help navigate that person uh to the place where they can get their pain addressed uh more immediately. Other questions or reflections on this? Uh yeah, AJ, you mentioned it's important to make it crystal clear the distinction between the listening that super and the staff will do versus what we're doing.
>> How have you seen that done well? Because it seems to be that that's something that should be pushed out along with the meeting information, you know, date, time, place, purpose so that people don't because I think if we don't, people are going to walk in and they're going to feel that it's going to be an open forum for their to them to
share their concerns. And to Pete's point, we need to somewhat on our part control with questions that are the same across everybody we talk to so that we can properly take the data, make sure it's accurate, apples to apples, >> but how do we best get that message out ahead of time to let them know the
purpose of the board listening sessions that they're attending and it's not still people are going to show up and have their customer questions, but I think that will help a lot with most people in the room to understand today I'm here for purpose A. If I want to address purpose B, I'm best suited to go to the meeting next week with the
superintendent and the staff. >> Yeah. Um and and we'll work with you to communicate this over and over and over. You'll need to communicate it in all of your um all of your advertisements for engagement sessions. You'll need to send explicit information about this to
whichever partners are hosting outreach sessions so they can send it out and uh differentiate that for people. You will do all of those things and yet and still people will show up um and you will be generous and you will listen generously when they show up with their customer
service uh uh comments. You will dutifully write down all those customer service uh comments. Um but that just means on the back end you all will have to do some interpretation realize okay actually this is an issue it's not a value what's the value under the issue.
Okay got it and then then you'll be able to crosswalk it. So just it will create a little bit more work for you in the back end but that that's just a normal part of the process. So yes we will work with you on how do you advertise uh how do you make that clear you'll have a script and in the script you'll you know start off each session explaining this
and differentiating this again but none of that will fully prevent folks from showing up you know with whatever pain they're authentically feeling in the moment and sharing about that and that is perfectly fine that is that's incredibly valid information as part of the listening. It just is information
that will require some translation for you all to use it. Um, and it'll that's information that'll be valuable for you to then figure out how to how to make sure that gets to the uh superintendent or their team or whoever on staff needs it as quickly as possible. Uh, but yeah, it'll happen, but we we will we will
help you communicate in all the ways you can. Uh, but we'll also help you be prepared for when the communication is insufficient. AJ, this is very much a tactical question, but we do have one set up at schools and as Dr. Kushner said, uh,
>> we've been invited by the principles. >> So, could you just kind of walk through the the meeting that has been we've been invited there by the principal. Does the principal welcome or does the principal just uh give us the keys? How how do you
hand handle that situation now going forward? You know, they we're going to have them different places and we have an opportunity to work it out, but because these are right on our doorstep, they're starting next week. Could you just lay out what the first 15 minutes of a of a meeting will be like
>> at at these high schools? >> Um, yeah. So what I can what I can share with you is what is common but ultimately you all are going to have to create uh your uh your script and your agenda. Um but I I can give you some
ideas of what frequently happens but that doesn't mean that's what you all going to choose to do. Um and so what frequently happens is in your script there's um you the board member opens up the session and says hey this is why we're here. Um this is the listing we're
here to accomplish. Um and then uh set the stage in whatever ways you choose to set the stage and then go directly into asking the question. Um and then you know people uh share in whatever way you've designed for them to share and then you ask the next question and people share next question people share and then you have a standard close out
that uh that includes among other things what are next steps that people uh should expect. So that is that is basically what normally happens how things normally go. Um and uh and it and it typically works out well. Um uh but
your question was does that create a role for staff? The answer is no, it does not. Um and so there I heard you say um I now understand better what I think uh was meant. What may have been
conveyed is that hey principles if you want to be the host of a meeting uh at your school then you could do that. If that was communicated to principles then we've communicated incorrectly. Uh that is not what I encourage you to do at all. Uh the problem is the moment the principal is the one owning the meeting
this is a customer service meeting not an owner service meeting. And so what you really want is ideally the principles are saying, "Hey, we want to make sure that there's listening that's taking place that people um in the community that I serve have easy and ample access to." And so that's why
we've invited the board to have one of their sessions at our school recognizing however it is the board's session. It is not my session. Uh ideally that is uh the expectation that has been communicated. >> Is that responsive to your inquiry? >> It it is. Thank you. But just make sure
the principles understand that ahead of time. There's no confusion at the time of the event. >> Yeah. And that is a great uh benefit that those principles are creating for the school community that they serve and lead is they're making sure that you know folks in their part of the school
district have ample and easy access to participating in this really important conversation. But that is distinct from it being a staff le session. This is not a staffled session. This is a board led session. Thank you. >> Uh other question. So again, we're
talking about you all going to do all this listening. It'll create this raw document of all of just what literally is heard and then that will be condensed into um a one to five page topical summary frequency analysis of what we heard and then that will further be
condensed into a set of one to three goals ideally one to three guard rails ideally. Um, any other questions about uh, you know, we've been kind of digging into the details of these three steps. Other things that are unclear, other things you're curious about uh, uh, these three steps of getting at
eventually adoption of your goals and guardrails. >> I had a question. Obviously with goals and guardrails, we're going to condense them. We're looking for one to three when we go to these sessions and have our standardized questions. Is there a good number on that or what do you think
is a productive number of questions to ask versus too many questions or not enough questions? >> Um it really depends on the amount of time uh that you have. Um generally these sessions that the are the engagement sessions that you're hosting
tend to be 60 to 90 minutes long. Um, and so these 60 to 90 minute long sessions, you know, honestly, you can fit in, you know, maybe somewhere in four to six questions. Like this is this is not a lot of questions. Um, um, and
to give people authentic time to actually share what they want to share and actually be heard and for you to uh, copy it down. Uh, so there's not a lot of questions. So, you're going to have to be really judicious about which questions do we select. Um that's also important because your outreach sessions, these community groups who are
saying, "Hey, yeah, you can come to our meeting and you can have a little bit of time." They ain't giving you 90 minutes. Uh like don't don't expect that. They might be like, "Hey, you could have, you know, 30 minutes on the agenda." Well, that means you've got to condense things down. uh how can I ask the questions you know that I need to ask but in this
reduced uh time set that means instead of having you know 20 minutes set aside for each of our questions you know maybe we only have like five minutes set aside for each of our questions and so you you want to create a script that is flexible uh to meet the needs of both your
engagement sessions and your outreach sessions. Um and that's the other uh natural uh kind of constraint on how many questions you want to ask. um you can you can condense four to six questions down for these outreach meetings. You would not be able to
condense 10 to 20 questions down for these outreach meetings. So if you want to keep the questions asked um uh in parody that is the other real constraint that limits. And so now you just got to be thinking about if I was only going to ask you know two three four five six
questions what would those be? Uh be thinking about that um because we'll come back to this question a little bit later. Andrew, how do you feel about um providing the questions to the communities ahead of time? Uh >> I don't think that's uh I don't think that's problematic. Uh I I don't uh I've
not often done that. Uh but we've seen boards that have uh that have chosen to do that. Um you know, and I think it just varies on what do you all what is you all's vision for kind of what is the most kind of fair way to go about
things. I've I've heard some board members say, "Hey, well, um, you know, if we give this we gave this group three weeks to think about their answers, we only gave this group one." I mean, so there are arguments to be made on either side. I don't I don't see a problem. I think that's just a judgment call that
you all have to make. AJ, could could we do a at 7 o'clock do a quick personal break and then we will be back at 7:07 or what? We'll do an AJ exercise here.
What will we what time will we be back? I'll let um Courtney decide. What time will we be back? Courtney, >> how about 7:15? >> Give us 15 minutes.
Okay, 7:15, but we still have four more minutes before the break. So, >> um, other questions on this, we've been talking about the raw listening, uh, the the summary and then condensing that further down into a set of a narrow set
of goals and guard. Any other questions about uh those pieces before we slip to a break? >> Yeah, AJ, I I've got a question. is that we've gone to we talked about uh creating a uniform list of questions that talk about owner issues, right?
Ownership and we have assumed that the communities are all somehow the same. We're going to be going out into a community that's very diverse and if we're listening then we talk about meeting them where they
are. How do we adjust? How do we deal with the fact that this group of folks think we're listening to them, but only if we do what they ask us to do? Other words, we're not listening. This group of folks will follow our lead,
but they expect a higher level of trust and communication from us. In other words, everybody their owner issues. They're not I'm not talking about customer issues about owner issues. But every community is because it's diverse and has its own culture, its own way of communicating,
right, is going to have different needs and uh one sizefits-all questionnaire doesn't get us there. >> Yeah. So, I actually slightly disagree with the framing of the inquiry. Um what I often see I I I think the people of
your community I generally are going to assume are mature uh rational uh humans who innately understand that just because I want something and I tell the board I want something that doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen. Like the board has to weigh all of the other
information they have, all the other constituencies, uh the limited set of resources available. like I'm uh mature and intelligent enough to understand that just because I say I want something. If that isn't what exactly what happens, that doesn't mean that the board wasn't listening. Uh that just
means that that that they have a lot more that they're juggling and they saw more of the elephant. And I was just touching this one piece. I think the people in your community are more than mature and intelligent enough to understand that if you don't fail the test of leadership. Um, and so what I
mean by that is you would have to make that clear to folks. You'd have to make it clear to folks that we actually listened before we made any decisions. We actually listened to um at a point in the decision-m process where nothing had yet been decided. You're going to have
to make that clear to folks like that this isn't pre-baked that we actually listen. Then once we listen, we actually provided people here's exactly what we heard in exactly the language that you said it in. We didn't try to massage it. We didn't try to modify it. Like we we just listened literally to what you
said. I think you have an obligation to communicate that. Then you have an obligation to communicate. Here's what we did with what you said. You said this. Here's here's what we've translated that into. Here's our how we've made meaning and understanding of that. And then based on that, here are the action steps we take. I think when
you connect all those dots, I think uh mature people can strongly disagree on the ultimate decision that you make but still understand that you made it in a well-reasoned manner that involves listening to them. I think when you miss any of those steps, what happens is people like, I don't know that they actually listen. I don't have any
evidence that they wrote down anything I said or maybe that I have evidence they they wrote it down, but I don't have any evidence of what they did with what I said. or maybe we have evidence where it does that but then I didn't see what action was taken linked to that. That's why this process is so vital that you
can't step over any piece of it and that you have to execute every piece of it effectively otherwise I think you do miss out on the opportunity to convince your community that you all are actually about representing their vision and values. So I I I am not of the belief that people will automatically
uh just assume that if I didn't get my way that that's because they didn't listen. I I don't I don't buy that for a second. Uh what I buy is there is effective leadership and there's ineffective leadership. And one test of your effective leadership will be like I did not get my way. I I can clearly see
how they got to where they got. I disagree, but I can clearly see how they listen to what I said and still pick something else. When you have laid out enough of the receipts of your process where that is the case, that means you've really you've really been effective at your leadership to a really
really remarkable and uncommon degree. That is what you're aiming for. Again, when you lead effectively, what I'm suggesting to you is that mature, reasonable people can accept the fact that they heard everything I said. They heard my pain. They heard my
frustrations. And yet, they went a different way. But I can see why they went a different way. Uh when you've done your job effectively, you you will hear that. You will hear people say that uh there will still be some folks in your community who aren't on that aren't on that same page. Um and you and that's
fine, too. uh you know communities are very diverse places but that's the thing I'll be listening uh that I'll be listening for and that you will be listening for now as well is did people say yep um I say that we needed to have a goal all about uh children learning
how to skydive and I advocated for skydiving as one of the three goals um and that I didn't come with the skydiving goal but I looked at the summary and I noticed didn't nobody else mention skydiving but me but 60% of the people mentioned that they wanted to see this instead. So, I disagree with them.
I still think they're wrong. I think they should have had a skydiving goal. But I can see why they didn't pick a skydiving goal. Like, when you make it clear for people, that's when you're just doing a more effective job of listening of um and making that listening plain to folks. When leaders fail the test of listening, then I then
you make it really easy for people to when they can't connect the dots to then start to infer, I bet they just didn't listen at all. Um, that's why this process is so meticulous. That's why I'm adamant about you all doing the work yourself so that you have the receipts,
you have the evidence of the listening every step of the way. Uh, we'll we'll dive more into all this uh on the flip side. See you all in 15 minutes. >> All right. At 7:18, we will be in our seats and present.
Hey. Hey. Hey. Oh hey. Hey, hey, hey. How cool. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.
Oh, and it feels so good. I feel so good. I feel so good. I feel so good. Oh, I feel so good.
I feel so good. I feel so good. I feel so good. I feel so good. Everything so good.
It feels so good. It feels so good. And it feels so good. And it feels so good. Let it feel so good. And it feels so good.
It feels so good. Feel so good. Feel so good. When you're feeling down, come my way. Going to lift you up. Let me hear you say, "Yeah, we're living on
love." Yeah, we're living. Yeah, we're living on love. Yeah, we're living on love. Yeah, we're living. Yeah, we're living on love. Oh, oh, we're going to take you higher. Oh, oh, we going to
lift you up. Oh, oh, we're going to take you higher. We going to lift you up. When you hit the ground, don't you lose your way. Got to get back up. Let me
hear you say, "Yeah, we're living on." Yeah, we're living. Yeah, we're living on Yeah, we're living on. Yeah, we're living. Yeah, we're living on. Oh, oh, we going to take you higher. Oh, oh, we
going to lift you up. Oh, we're going to take you higher. Oh, oh, we're going to lift you up. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
We're going to take you higher. We're going to lift you up. We're going to take you higher. Oh. Oh. We're going to lift you up. We're going to take you higher.
We going to lift you up. We're going to take you out. Take you out. We going to let you You take me higher. Higher. You take me higher. You take me higher.
You take me higher. Higher. Heat. Heat. You take me higher. You take me higher. You take me higher. You take me higher. Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. The rest is yet to come. The rest is yet to fall. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. is what discovered we have three different clocks up here. The DAS clock is 2
minutes faster than the Apple clocks and they're different from this clock. We're going to have to synchronize our watches. We're going to go in Apple time, which means we have 45 seconds. >> Mr. Get all the late people out here in
my seat. time we would necessarily use the gavl, but I'm going to sound the gavvel at 7:18 uh apple time. He knows. What's the difference between an
observation and an interpretation? >> What's the difference between an observation and an interpretation? >> Interpretation is interactive. >> Interpretation is interactive. What's observation? Observation is
>> factually or I guess neutral facts. It's literally what >> observation is observation is mutual facts. >> Neutral fact like just >> neutral fact >> just description of what you see or heard. >> Yeah. Just the description of exactly
what I saw or heard. How's that distinct from an interpretation? I would view an observation as it's filtered and an interpretation I mean an interpretation is filtered and observation is unfiltered. >> You're not overlaying your thoughts or opinions about it. >> Yeah, observation is unfiltered. I'm not
overlaying my thoughts and opinions about it and interpretation is filtered. I am overlaying my thoughts uh and opinions about it. Yeah. Anybody else? What's the distinction between observation and interpretation? I would say that interpretation opens the door for somebody to um bring in their own
experiences and biases. >> Interpretation uh has the capacity for somebody to bring in their own experiences which could bring in deeper contextualization but it could also bring in bias. Uh anybody else? What's the difference between observation
interpretation? Anybody else? So when it comes to your listening campaign for this first round of listening, which are we going to encourage you to do? Uh observational listening or interpretive listening? >> Observational. >> Observational.
>> Why is it absolutely essential this first round of listening be observational in nature rather than interpretive in nature? Just >> to capture the facts. capture the facts. Who else? Why? Why is this important that you observe what
your community says, not yet interpret that? This first the listening, this first round of listening is not interpreting what they're saying. It's really capturing it's observing what they say. Why why is that important? Why do you think that might be important for this first round? >> Because each each session is capturing a
small subset that's going to go into a larger data set. And if we're interpreting before it goes into the data set to be compared to the other data, then we're manipulating the results. >> Yeah. Uh you absolutely tank the results. Um if what we're doing is
interpreting because then it's well this is what I think they meant. Uh which could be what they meant or could be something the exact opposite of what they meant. Uh what we want to do initially just capture what they said the way they said it. We want to observe what they said. uh we don't uh want to
interpret what they said for this first round of listening. So I want to do a little bit of practice. Um and so I'm uh I'm just gonna um I'm just going to say something and then I want somebody to observe what I said. Um um
my kids were super adorable on the plane last week. My kids were super adorable on the plane. Somebody observe what I said. You you said your kids were super adorable on the plane last week. >> That was close, but that was actually
not an observation. There was a mild very mild form of interpretation. Did anybody catch it? >> So, I'll say what I said again. I said, "My kids were uh really adorable on the plane last week." And then she said, "Your kids were really adorable on the plane last week." But that's not
actually what I said. Um so, uh let me give you another example and see if you can observe what I said. Um, uh, I absolutely believe that when children aren't learning, it's because school systems have to change their adult behavior. I absolutely believe that when children
aren't learning, it means that school systems have to change their adult behavior. Will somebody observe what I said? >> AJ absolutely believes that when children aren't learning, adults have to change their behavior. >> That's not what I said.
So th this is the distinction between observation and interpretation I want you to capture. What I want you to get practice at is not interpreting in any way, shape or form. Not modifying it from your perspective or what you think that I meant or anything. I want you to capture exactly word for word what I
said. I want you to observe what was said. I don't want you to in any way interpret. Uh there is danger in interpretation at the stage. I want you to hear exactly what your community says and capture it exactly as they said it. And so this is why we're practicing the distin distinction between observation and interpretation. Uh let let me uh try
another one. Uh and by the way, we're just going to stay here. We we are going to get this. You are going to master observational listening uh here in the next few minutes. Um um um I uh am
training 70 students on restorative practices this week. That's actually what I'm doing this week. Uh, that's why I'm here and not there with you in person. I am training 70 children on restorative practices this week. >> Somebody observe what I said.
>> AJ said that he is training 70 children on restorative practices this week. >> Not quite. Uh, still interpreting. I don't want you to change a single solitary word I said. I am training 70
children on restorative practices this week. >> That is an observation. That is her perfectly observing exactly what I said. She did not modify a word. She did not change a pronoun. She did not change a meaning. She did not change an idea. She
changed absolutely nothing. She did not interpret this is what I heard uh AJ say. She observed what I heard AJ say was and she repeated word for word exactly what I said. Uh let me try another one. See if somebody else can
get in on this. Um uh my 70 students practiced mediation skills today. My 70 students practiced mediation skills today. >> My 70 students practice mediation skills today.
>> Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Word for word. Um, so I'm being very aggressive right now about this distinction between observation, interpretation. Why do you all think that is? Why am I really pushing this very purist idea of observational listening versus interpretive listening?
Why why do you think that I think this matters? >> Because it's natural for us to do. I think it's natural for us to want to interpret and and reframe what we're hearing versus we need to just write down what we hear. Anybody
else? Why why do why am I suggesting this this approach to listening matters? >> Sometimes people listen to respond and when we interpret it helps us formulate how we're going to respond. >> Yeah. Uh you are not here for your
benefit. Uh you are here for your community's benefit. Uh so we're not here to try to um m massage what they say or modify what they say or even professionalize what they say. Um the the only real um distinction I have here
is that I have seen some boards like uh bleep out certain language um like only if there's like a curse word or something. Um >> um I personally wouldn't do that. I' I'd write down exactly what people say, but you all may choose, and I think it's a reasonable choice for each board to make
if you're going to kind of censor out um uh censor that out. The reason I wouldn't do that is because I think that's a slippery slope of then start censoring out other language that you find inappropriate or unprofessional. Uh that isn't um you know, curse words. Oh,
well, you know, she said, you know, that you know, this staff member is an idiot. Um, I might censor out the staff member's name. I would not censor out um that they said this, you know, staff member, you know, redacted is an idiot. Um, I
wouldn't censor that out. I would capture what people said word for word. Uh, I am a purist about this. You all may choose to uh have a slightly less pierce approach and I think there's I think that's reasonable. Um, but that's a decision you all have to make. But just know that my encouragement
is to observe exactly what people say. Why? Um so take a moment and just share what are your what's your thoughts about this about observing exactly what people say uh versus um doing some mild interpretation or in some cases some mild redaction. Um like for for example
if a child's name was mentioned I actually would redact that. Um but I would redact that because I think that's necessary to comply. Um, I would argue that's necessary for us to comply with federal law if we're going to create a public document that, you know, we shouldn't be mentioning individual
children and their educational needs and whatnot. Um, and so there are some things I I would redact, but I outside of that, I'm I'm pretty much a purist on this, but you all need to have some conversation about this for yourself. What are your thoughts now that you've kind of experienced it for a second
between observational, listening, interpretive? Um, and kind of where do you all want to collectively draw the line on these things? I think it's a lot easier to do than I initially considered to subtly interpret. I'm less
confident in my skills of typing fast enough now. Um, I think maybe our community would um appreciate at least at the beginning of a document
knowing if they might come into contact with language that they might find offensive. But I agree that it's a slippery slope and unless you're protecting someone's ch a child or or someone's name, um maybe there's a way we can deal with that just to make make
people aware, you know, this isn't for your kid to read or or you make that decision for yourself and your family, but this document has foul language in it. >> Who else? What are your thoughts on this? >> How do you account for
sarcasm. And we we know you can say the same 12 words and it can mean something different depending upon where you put the emphasis and what your facial expression is. You might >> be engaging in irony or sarcasm. So when
we're transcribing and and trying to just observe and we know and I recognize the challenge associated with this, but if somebody is is saying something and
meaning something else, sarcasm or >> irony, how do you write that down? >> Uh I do not recommend that you interpret it. I recommend that you tell people at the beginning, hey folks, we're going to record exactly what you say, exactly the way you say it. And so, however you want to communicate, that's what we're going
to capture. And if people choose to communicate with sarcasm, then that's what's captured. And I think that's, you know, that that is perfectly appropriate. That is the choice that they made. And I think your job as a public official is to honor that choice. Um, it it will be odd in the record. Um, but that is the choice they made. Um my
suggestion to you is to honor the decisions and the wisdom of your participants and faithfully let them know we're going to write down exactly what you said. Um uh and you know what I you know favorite examples uh is u and I will slightly
edit myself is we were having a conversation um um of this nature and somebody said well I think you're an a-hole. Um and I said ma'am I heard you say I think you're an a-hole. Did I hear you correctly? Um, and she said, "Yeah, that's exactly what I said." I was like, "All right, I'm making sure that you know that I've got
I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly. Uh, who will be the next to share?" And then we just kept it moving. Like I literally captured exactly what she said word for word. And it's important to me uh that she experienced being heard that not a professionalized, purified, sanitized
version of it. Um, but that that I was that I was if she's grown enough to use that language, I'm grown enough to hear it and to write it down. Um, and and I think the same is true of sarcasm. If if people know, hey, we're writing down, we're trying to capture exactly what you
say. So, if you mean something else, then say something else, but whatever you say, we're going to write that down as this is what you mean. Um, and let and trust that people are mature enough and adult enough to uh choose accordingly how they want to communicate. AJ, how do we handle um feedback in
Spanish? Do we type it in in Spanish or do we translate it and put it in? >> Yeah, I strong Yeah, I strongly recommend you capture language in uh in the language it was spoken. I strongly recommend that you capture comments in the language that they were spoken. Uh not in the even if there often there
would be an interpreter present, but I don't recommend that you capture what the interpreter said. I recommend you capture what the community member said. Uh, and on the back end, it will have to be translated to all be part of the record because the ultimate summary, uh, uh, I suspect you'll choose to, uh, have
it summarized in English rather than Spanish. Um, but I do strongly recommend whatever langu and we've had situations, you know, we serve large school districts. We've had situations where there have literally been 20 different languages uh that were recorded in the
official record in in their language. Um and we think that's perfectly fine. Um and then when it came time to do the thematic uh frequency analysis uh at that point uh they get interpreted uh
they get translated into um uh whatever the language of record is going to be which is usually English. Uh, but in terms of capturing, I I do not recommend you capture what the interpreter says. I recommend you capture what the community member says.
>> AJ, what if we don't speak the language? >> Yeah. And if you don't if you don't have that uh capacity, this is one of those times when the recording comes in handy. Um or one of those times where um like you have to record it and then capture
it after the fact. Um um if you have you know folks on the board who speak Spanish uh then um I'm hopefully they'll be at some of those but they shouldn't be at all of them uh because you should be spreading this around. So there's even if you have folks on the board who speak Spanish
they're uh that doesn't mean they should go to all the Spanish sessions. They need to go to a wide distribution of them as well. So you are almost certainly going to wind up in situations uh where you are capturing things that interpreted. This is where the recorded record uh will save you because then you
can go back and add it. However, if you don't record the suh the session or it's an outreach session and they don't want it recorded, that is the one situation where unfortunately you are stuck recording uh what the interpreter said.
You're recording the words as the interpreter interpreted them. So, you are getting an interpretation of what the community member said rather than an observation what they said. you're observing the interpreter rather than observing the community member. But only in that situation, if you don't have somebody uh a native speaker uh on the
board and it's not being recorded, um then in that situation uh to preserve that that comment gets included in the record, then the only thing you can do is capture what the interpreter said. Uh but if you can avoid that um and you can capture it in the native language, uh that that is the strongest way to go
about this. >> Other questions? >> Yeah. What about uh follow-up questions? If somebody makes a statement and can you follow up with a question to say, "Let me clarify what you're saying so I can get exactly what you're saying and I'm not confused about what you're
saying." And let me give you an example of what I'm thinking about is, you know, the sentence >> the rooster crowed and the sun rose. Followup question. Are you saying there's a correlation there or some relationship between the the rooster
crowing and the sun rising or you just giving me a statement that you saw both? Can I make that do I have to may I ask those follow-up questions? >> So I don't think so that the word and is now made clearer to me of what he
meant by and. >> Yeah, I see each board take a slightly different approach to this. Uh again, I tend to be more in the purist camp. I just capture what people say. Um, however, I've seen a lot of boards where they will make follow-up questions fair game as long as the purpose of the
follow-up question is to make clear the intention of the sentence that was spoken, not to uh try to in any way lead or direct or um u elicit some
additional comment from the participant. And so if the purpose is I'm here's a sentence I heard you say uh I I want to make did I hear that correctly or um did I capture that correctly? That's always fair game. Um and so just making sure that I captured you said these 10 words.
I only heard nine. I I think I missed one of the 10. Could you say it again so I make sure I catch all 10? That's always fair game. What you're trying to do is you're just trying to capture the observation. What you're saying is slightly different. You're trying to capture the meaning uh of the observation. Uh, and I think each board
makes their own decision on that. Me, I'm kind of a purist. Like I said, I'm just going to capture what you said, um, and, you know, let the, uh, semantic analysis on the back end sort out meaning. Uh, but I've seen a lot of boards say, "Yeah, it's absolutely fair game." If somebody said something and it wasn't and like everybody in the room
was like, "I'm not sure I understood what you meant." Uh, is it fair game then to ask that follow-up for clarity? That's a y'all decision. And I would just say whatever y'all decide, everybody play by the exact same rule. like we don't want some people uh nudging for clarity and some people not
because uh now we're not giving everyone kind of an equal opportunity to be heard and so I I think whichever way you go is fine as long as all of you are you know are approaching it in the same way is is that helpful I guess kind of building on that I had a
similar question in my mind I was replaying your Miss Johnson example where you know her initial statement that you observed was she wanted a stop sign. And I'm paraphrasing obviously, but you told us, you know, that's her customer behavior. You were able to get to her owner behavior though by asking
the the why. Why do you want a stop sign? >> And ultimately the safety issue was brought out. And that's the vision of the community or the value of the community that you're looking to protect, which is ultimately what we're trying to derive from the observations we make. So, I guess is there any role
in this where we ask a follow-up question such as that to try to elicit the u member of the public's value underlying their statement? >> Yeah, I I really really love the insight of this question u uh because it means
you're definitely paying attention to the Miss Johnson story. Um but but what I appreciate about this is you caught something. There's going to be uh an interpretation at some point in this, you know, with M. Johnson saying, you know, I want to stop
sign at some point because that's more of a customer issue than an owner issue. At some point, there's going to be an interpretation. And essentially what you're asking is should we do the interpretive work in the moment or should we do the interpretive work later on the back end? Uh that is a you all
choice. Um it probably won't surprise you. Um I recommend doing the interpretive work on the back end rather than in the moment. Um, but I think either is reasonable as long as you all are do making the exact same call. Um, why I tend to prefer to do the back end
the do that interpretive piece on the back end rather than in the moment is just because I honestly don't trust you all to consistently do it the exact same way because it's really hard. Uh, and and also for participants, the experience that your participants have
is, I heard you asked follow-up questions to Miss Johnson, but you didn't ask any follow-up questions to me. Now, they won't realize what you were doing is you were following up to get at the value underneath of it. You weren't following up to give Miss Johnson more airtime. But what they'll probably experience is Miss Johnson got more airtime than I did. Um, and so that
to me, the harm of that outweighs the benefit of the clarity that I would get from doing the interpretive work in the moment. But that said, honestly, I think this is a fair uh I think you could fairly go either way because there is going to be interpretation at some point. Um, and so whether you do it in
the moment or you do it later on in the process uh in this semantic frequency analysis, I I think that uh I I think that's a y'all call. So I know where I land, but I think it's a fair decision to land in either place. Um and so that's that's just a call you all have
to make. And again, which wherever you land, the most important thing is that you all do the same thing. Um, if you all aren't catching on to this, this act of listening is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Like you said, oh yeah, we're going to listen to some community folks. No, no, no. This is this is some
real real deal listening. And it and it takes a lot more effort uh to do really intentional observational listening u than it sounds, which is why we're spending all this time uh doing a training session on it. uh because it's not the style of listening uh that we do
in day-to-day life. You would annoy your spouses and partners if you repeated every word they said back to them all day every day. That your your relationship would be cut short. Uh this so this isn't the type of listening that we do constantly. Um but in this
specific specific use case, um my recommendation to you is that this is going to be the most useful type of listening to engage in. Um because the intention here is how do we make sure that we are just authentically capturing uh the voice of our community, the vision and values of our community with
and inserting ourselves into it as minimally as absolutely possible. Um but yeah, I think a reasonable person could go either way. Do we want to do the interpretation in the moment and push for uh clarity you push on the issue to get the value in the moment or do we want to do the interpretation in the
back end uh and look at stop sign say okay what what what am I guessing is the value behind Miss Johnson's comment stop sign I'm guessing the value behind that is um is safety so um and so there's pros and cons to either I think either
one is appropriate I think you all just need to land on one and everybody do the same Uh, and by the way, we're going to get into your uh, script um, uh, not too long from now. And all of these type of questions are the types of questions we're going to literally answer in the
script so that you all, okay, this is exactly how we're all doing it the exact same way. U, other questions, other reflections on observational listening versus interpretive listening? Anything else that's coming up for you? Does it does this make sense? Does it sound like a bunch of hoie? Like uh talk to me.
What's going on? >> This is You have a room full of 40 people and you have an hour and you have six questions. And I could just talk about how you
again a tactical question, how you move around a room under those circumstances and um make the most of this opportunity with those 40 people. >> Can you talk about how how you
um Yes. So there are really only two good answers to this question that I normally see in practice. The first answer is get better at your jobs. Um, and so just get better at observational listening and get better at typing really really really quickly to capture exactly what people said. So that so
that that's one thing is just like get better at those skills. Practice practice practice so that when you're doing them that you can just do so speed. I was not good at any of these skills when I first got elected. I got really good at these skills over time of being a school board member. Um, so that so that's one option. The other option,
the more practical option uh for this circumstance, divide and conquer. So instead, you've got 40 people in a room, we've got these this number of questions, this amount of time. Instead of having two board members uh lead that particular listening session, let's have four board members lead that listening session. And
we'll have 20 of you go with these two and 20 of you go with those two. That is the more common answer to that question. In fact, I've actually seen one engagement session where the board hosted where all nine of the board members showed up. Um, and they
basically broke the room into three different groups. Um, so we've got three board members over here doing capture here, three listening and capture, three board members doing listen and capture, three board members doing listening and capture. Um, and so they did that specifically because they wanted to maximize the amount of voice that each
individual person uh could provide. Uh, also, frankly, this is why five meetings probably isn't going to cut it. Like, u, you're going to have some super oversubscribed meetings where not everybody uh gets heard. Um, and so the
way that you calibrate for that is you'll just host you're going to have a whole bunch of listening opportunities. It won't just literally be five and that's it. Um, and so that's part of the reason why folks wind up having as many listening sessions they do is just to make sure that we have the space for
authentic listening for the number of people who want to do so. Uh, but yeah, the two most common answers are people level up, level up, level up um, and just get better at typing more quickly and get better at capturing observing what people say. Um, I've done enough
practice that I can generally capture, you know, a paragraph or so before my brain starts to melt. Uh, but if you notice that you can only capture like six words at a time or a sentence at a time, one thing that I would encourage you to do is practice before you do this listening, you know, annoy your family,
annoy your friends. Like, hey, I just want you to talk to me and I'm going to practice observing back what you say just cuz I got to level up my skills for this community listening session. You would be amazed how quickly you can improve this particular skill just by taking some time to practice. And so, I
would encourage you, it will be annoying to your friends and family. uh they may not want to hang out with you as much after this but it will be a service to the community that they will be doing is they just share with you you know a few sentences at a time and you just strengthen this particular muscle of yours of observing back exactly what
people said. Um your other option is like I said kind of divide and conquer just bring more board members to the engagement and then break the group up into multiple groups that are each going through the exact same script. something. >> What else is on your mind, folks, before
we transition? Uh, what else >> about observation versus interpretation? Anything else? >> All right. Um, so let's get into some of the uh, uh, technical aspects, which I promise you get into. Uh, we're already in it with observation versus interpretation, but let's get into some
more technical aspects, and then we'll get into logistic aspects, including kind of what are next steps. So technical aspects. Um you had some homework. Uh and so now we're going to talk about what should be in the script. Um and so um Greg, I'll ask if you're
not already. I I assume you probably are capturing some notes. Um but but if you could uh what we'll do is we'll try to capture what you all share uh right now and we will be observing what you say. Um uh but I want you all to I want to transition in the conversation to you
all sharing with us what are some things that you think uh ought to be in the script kind of where and why uh and that's inclusive of what are questions you think should be asked and so we're going to solicit that from you all right now just for the next few moments um and then what we will do is we'll take what we hear this evening and we'll put
together a rough draft um script for you based on what we we hear we'll provide that back to you and then you all can do the work of refining and finding analyzing the script. Uh but tonight, uh we do the brainstorming work. Um and then we will uh we will uh sharpen it up
a little bit and then give you back a rough draft. So the floor is open. Um based on all that you've heard and the homework that you've done in advance of tonight, what should be in the script? And think of it, um what should be in the opening? What should be in the body?
What should be in the closing? Um what should be in the script and why? The floor is open. My uh thoughts I wrote down in terms of the beginning of the script focus a lot on one of the questions I asked earlier which is um I think there should be a short explanation regarding the distinction between board work and
superintendent work accompanied by an explanation that the board um what we're looking for at the end of the day throughout the comments are common themes that ultimately we'll put together with feedback we get from other listening sessions to identify the vision and values of the community speak
to the fact that we understand some people may have individual concerns and while you're welcome to share those tonight that's not necessarily the purpose of this but we're happy to get you in touch with the proper people if you have an operational issue again kind of educating the public so to speak of you know what our role is in our
listening session versus the staff's listening sessions um and then the first question was beginning and end of the script and you know thank the public for their partic participation, provide them a a general timeline of the listening sessions and ultimate summarization
uh and review to identify the visions and values and set the goals and guard rails so they have a a good understanding of what that looks like. And I would add to that based on what we talked tonight is where they can go to see hopefully the raw published data of what we observed. Um so that
>> again the receipts piece you mentioned uh that was the first question. The second part was was what show it should be part of the conversation and I wrote down I think the conversation needs to center on >> uh so so so hold on right before you go into that I want to reflect back some of what I heard as you say I want to open
up with uh distinguishing between uh board work and superintendent work let people know that uh we are here to listen to the vision and values of the community um um and that uh that's slightly different if people have uh other concerns that uh we want to help
them get those addressed Um um but clarify that what we're trying to do is establish the five-year priorities. Uh um and that's driving the questions we're going to hear today. At the end of it, I want to the first thing I heard you say is I want to thank uh people uh for coming out for sharing. um and then
provide them details about um the full where they can find the full transcript um and then we'll be uh creating a summary based on all this listing from across uh the entire city and then share with them a little bit about the timeline of what happens next. Did I
generally capture uh the the different considerations you had for the beginning and the end? >> Mild interpretation, but yes, generally yes. Right. >> I couldn't help it. OJ you did a great job with that. Thank you. Really? Yeah. That's you captured it.
>> Um you said you had some. So that was beginning and end. You said you had some for the middle. >> Yeah. And I'm happy to see if we want to just focus on the beginning or the end. But um the middle part what I wrote is I think the conversations uh need to center on how we go about setting
students up for success in the students student outcomes department. and encompassed in that how instead of writing questions I kind of had I guess themes to think about through questions. I think the following issues should be part of the conversation. Um safety, operational transparency,
curriculum issues, uh fiscal responsibility, commitment to the provision of services, counseling, speech pathology, etc. uh and commitment to bettering uh our public schools with an eye toward keeping them public in the true sense and not expanding to a charter um type
of model. >> You know, I thinking through that I'm I feel like that's but think about the various audiences we would be in front of. um you know, when we're trying to get visions
>> and values, I don't know that we'd want to drag people into curriculum and and that kind of discussion because we're we're not just talking to a school audience, you know, we're talking to people and from all walks of life and we're trying to understand what makes
the community tick and what they care about. And I think we have to be careful that we don't introduce too many specifics about the um operational side, curriculum side, because that'll draw us
away from them talking about their heart and their cares and their concerns, their and their values. That's the only thing I would add add to that. >> Yeah. And I don't disagree in the questions I wrote and I'll I'll shut up and let other people talk, but we're more big picture. get your feedback. But I think those are a lot of the things
that we're going to hear and I kind of in my organizing my thoughts, that's why I was putting those down first. Yeah. >> Is because I think as we're listening for themes, >> um, you know, I just that's the way my brain worked and then I wrote down questions that will elicit broader feedback. Uh, but yeah, I don't
disagree, Pete. I mean I, you know, we want to explore hopes and fears and aspirations for their community, for our community, for our kids. And um but
you you've set it up up well, >> but moving from from that to getting to the heart of the matter with with people. And I I'm not offering up a suggested question, but I I think that's what we want to probe. Um, you know,
what where are their hearts? Uh, and you know, probe value questions. So, >> okay. >> Oh, get what's in their heart. Probe value questions. Um, yeah, absolutely. What
are you thinking? Um, I just thinking, you know, what what's one thing um you wish the district leaders understood about your community? Uh, what is it you feel like they're missing? >> What's one thing you wish district leaders knew about your community? One
thing uh that you think they're missing? >> Maybe take off take off the take off the back end. >> So, I mean, that's my that's my idea of a question, right? What's one thing this you wish district leaders knew about your community? >> What's one thing you wish district leaders knew about your community? Yeah.
Who else? What do you got? Beginning, middle, end. Who else? What are some ideas? >> So, my idea in for the beginning definitely thank them for being there. Thank you for being here today. We are here to listen and learn from the community. The purpose of this session is not to debate decisions or solve
individual concerns, but to better understand the hopes, expectations, values, and priorities our community has for Fort Worth ISD students. School boards exist to represent the vision and values of the community. Our responsibility is to translate those into value those values into goals and
guardrails to guide the work of the superintendent and district administration. Your feedback will help share that work. Today, we want to hear from everyone. There are no right or wrong answers. We ask everyone to participate respectfully and allow others the opportunity to share their
perspectives. It sounds an awful lot like some of the um some of the uh scripts that I've heard u previously uh where there's this real intentionality first and foremost about gratitude and then about
clarifying kind of what is the nature of uh the what we're here to do uh what is the responsibility of the board inside of that. I mean just making those pieces of the puzzle clear to folks up front. Uh that is a very common uh those are
very common elements that I see boards include in their script. >> Uh who else? What what are your ideas? >> Yeah, on the I thought that was a great intro. Uh Courtney the um on the questions I was thinking very open-ended questions.
uh and along the things if we're interested in the vision of the community and values is what's your vision for for ISTD? What are uh what values should forward ISTD center on? Um how do you define positive student
outcomes? What's the more most important thing that ford can provide for your student? >> Maybe it's a maybe that's a uh a customer action. Um, what should FWISD avoid doing
>> and how would you define success for for Worth ISD? >> What should we avoid doing? How would you define success? Uh, what are your vision for for ISD? What values are important for Fort Worth ISD uh to
honor? Uh yeah, the these are absolutely uh uh really common uh the types of questions and and the insistence that you had at the beginning that uh I want to ask open-ended questions, we definitely encourage you in the direction of open-ended questions. Um uh
we would push back heavily on the board adopting a script that felt like it was trying to lead the community in one direction or the other. Uh there's going to be a time where you all will need to lead the community in one direction or the other. This ain't that. this is purely listening. Um, and so this is not
the time for trying to lead the conversation. This is just the time for authentic listening. Um, and so yeah, uh, open-ended questions truly are the order of the day here. Uh, who else? What do you got? >> I think I'd also like to add an open-ended question around challenges and just ask what barriers students are
facing to hear the challenges the community is concerned about. >> Yeah. What barriers are students facing? Yeah, it's definitely a values uh oriented question. >> I had a few Do you want I had a few that I' I'd add. So I I do think again
towards the end you asked about the end some some emphasis on our commitment to continue welcoming individual feedback um and thoughts uh perhaps emphasizing the channels the multiple channels that they might do. So um and then so that's one process one I guess uh two others
that are kind of um processish is you know do we ask them I had a thought that we might ask them to share whether they have children currently in the ISD and where at what level if so if not uh do they have children who will be in the ISD or have had children there in the
past and then I don't this may be dragging it out so maybe we shouldn't do this but perhaps they could also share a little about themselves to the extent it might shed light on their vantage on the ISD. The um was another process one and then a few kind of the more broad broad
ones is what things are on track and off track in the ISD to your mind. What percentage of our students can we should we realistically expect to be on track academically in the ISD? What are the outcomes we should seek for graduates of our ISD high schools academically but
also otherwise? Um, if you have children currently in the ISD or who have recently left the ISD, what would you like to have changed? Um, and then I had two of the last process ones were saying saying something about our timeline for setting
the goals and guard rails, whether we share the October thing or or otherwise. Um, and then also asking them what other are there other gatherings where they think it'd be helpful for us to try and attend to get further feedback. >> Yeah. Um uh I I I just really appreciate
the amount of homework all of you have done. This is this is really really helpful. I've come into some of these sessions and the board members clearly did not do their homework. Um and so uh there was not this level of thoughtfulness. Some one u we've captured all the different things that
you uh said, but I want to lean into one uh in particular. Um, I think as uh as a school board, uh, you're definitely going to you're definitely going to have to wrestle with how you want, um,
>> um, >> um, replay for me again. Uh what um um after the welcoming um what did you have next? >> The process ones were um do they have
children currently? Where at what level? >> That that's it. Did they have children? Thank you. Um I think a question that you all going to have to wrestle with as a school board is um what data do we want to capture about participants? Um, and the number one rule that I'd always
offer you is never capture data that you're not going to use. So if you're not going to use it, don't capture it. Um, so what that means is if you are going to capture something, you need to have a plan in advance on exactly how we use this. Um, and so for example, um,
some people have chosen to capture that information specifically use it u just as a process check. Have we heard from a meaningful number of parents? Have we heard from a meaningful number of teachers? Have we heard from a meaningful number of students? That's that's one thing that people have
captured the data and used it for. Another thing that people have captured the data, used it for uh is providing u as part of the fre u uh topical frequency analysis um what percentage uh what was the u what percentage of
parents had this concern versus what percentage of teachers had this concern. And so those are two radically different uses of the data. My recommendation you don't capture anything uh unless you intend to use it but you all need to proactively decide exactly how would we use that on the
front end. Uh it als there are also some additional elements that pertain to that. Um, if you were going to ask that in the script, that means you also, if you're going to have a survey, which I suspect you probably will uh online so that people uh can have access to participate in that way, that means
you'd also have to ask that in the survey um and capture that. Uh it means whatever information you seek to capture um that uh you're going to have to accept. Some people would choose not to provide the information and you'll have
to decide in advance of capturing uh of soliciting that and not capturing it. What do we do with that? Uh do we discount that in some way? Uh you do we do we wait it differently? I mean there are a lot of choices that you have. So, at the at the at the bottom line, I
would say don't capture any information that you don't plan to use. If you say we're going to capture something, then my next question is what is your exact plan for how you will use that? Um, and so if anybody has ideas about what you would or wouldn't capture and how you would or wouldn't use it, that is
totally fair game for this conversation. What in my the questions that I've suggested just some what's your relationship to the forth IST? Are you a parent? You're a student? Are you alum? Are you if
you're a um do you have kids in your household? I don't want to, you know, get too far into a profile, but um I I think it'd be valuable to know if person had what their relationship was to the school. I'm just a resident of Fort Worth and I want what's best for my
community or I'm my livelihood depends on having a highly qualified workforce or uh trying to just understand what predisposition somebody brings, what what caused them to show up at this meeting.
>> Oh yeah. And so so again this is this is a data capture thing. Um, and you just have to decide how are we using the data. What I what I think I'm understanding is that your use of the data uh isn't for analysis purposes as
much as it is for contextualization purposes uh in the conversation. Uh, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Uh, but then you would just know that the way we're using this isn't for further analysis or isn't for process check. We're just using this uh for contextualization
um in the conversation uh but not beyond that. Uh if you plan to use it uh for something more specific beyond that, then you'd actually need to build into your script what exact pieces of data you're going to collect and then make sure to ask that of every single speaker
recognizing that some will decline to respond. Um, and so again, how you choose to use it just is really the definitive factor in how it shows up in your script. Well, you could spend a lot of time looking for patterns and we don't want to go overboard looking for
patterns, but you know, if we're hearing one thing from parents consistently and it's never mentioned by, you know, a labor activist uh who doesn't have kids or it's never mentioned by somebody in
the Chamber of Commerce or I I I just some patterns and I don't know which ones we would we would want to uh try to capture. But at least parents I I would want to know if somebody had children in
the school and then when we look back on it uh at the end of all this we could you look for patterns. Did parents talk about things differently than you know somebody that's you works in a in a restaurant and employs high school kids.
and maybe a ignorant question to ask, but I'm going to ask it, which is my concern is if we're capturing that data, if we have more data about a certain subset or more data about certain people, it's going to inherently cause a bias toward maybe their opinions. I think as just a human being and you
know, it makes sense like, yeah, I want to know what the parents say because they're the ones sending their kids to school and our duty and we're trying to improve student outcomes here. >> But the question is, you know, we're supposed to represent the vision and values of the community. And I take that back to your kind of as a purist approach which is I don't think any
subset of individuals should outweigh >> their comment should outweigh any others and if we start capturing that data I think we step into >> looking for patterns there that we want to see that you know maybe we're overreaching. >> So is it ever appropriate to
>> emphasize down the road the opinions and visions and values of the parents above someone who doesn't have a kid in the ISD? Well, this is agree with that. >> This is fundamentally a decision that you all will have to make. >> Um, this isn't what you all are doing in
listening is you are defining who is our community and do we wait that differently based on their role in uh uh kind of membership within our community. Uh and once again, this is a decision that you all as a school board uh can
make uh that that we that we want to capture or we don't want to capture. Uh but yeah, the issues that you bring up are worth repeating. Uh that you'll just want to be really really intentional about how do we plan to use this and be
prepared to back it up and defend your use of the data. Uh, and by the way, you're going to get uh, dinged either way. If you capture data, uh, you're going to have people who are angry that you captured. If you don't capture data, you're going to have people angry that you didn't capture. Like, I've watched boards get cussed out for doing uh, for
taking both approaches. And so, I'm not wanting to lean you one direction or the other. I think you all just need to be in discernment. And what we're listening for in your conversation is are we hearing you all lean one way or the other? Because that will inform uh, our interpretation of what happens here tonight is going to inform the uh, rough
draft that we put together. But ultimately, even though we put together a rough draft of a script for you, this is you. This is your script. This is not our script. And so, you all will have to massage it and change it and design it to make sure that it's the one you're comfortable using because then every
single one of you will use the exact same script in every single engagement session, in every single outreach session. Um, and uh with the endeavor to try to do it the exact same way. So, whether you want to collect data or not, uh, we're listening right now, and I'm not hearing a clear consensus either way
yet. So, we'll I'll keep listening for that. U, but you can go you can go either way, but you also need to back it up and have a real justification for what did we collect and how did we use it. Um, I think that I have a a vision
question that I'm trying to imagine if I knew the the demographics like who who was the community member or you know do they have kids that kind of thing if it would >> change the answer which is >> to the question is when you imagine Fort
Worth ISD at its best down the road what does it look like? you know, so I think of myself down the road, I'm going to be, >> you know, an empty neester. And does my feeling about how I describe >> what Fort Worth ISD looks like
functioning at its absolute best, is that different at that point as an empty neester than now when I have younger children? You know, um, >> I don't know that it matters that >> if I was an empty neester or if I have two children >> or if I'm a employer. Um, so maybe some
of I guess maybe my my suggestion is maybe some of this can be >> um >> resolved through the types of questions that we ask we determine does it >> do we really need to know some of these
things or not? I don't know. Um anyway, >> yeah, I think there's real value in capturing some data just to make sure that we know that all constituencies are being heard >> and and so whether that and maybe it's simple, it's parent, alum, community
member, what have you, but I think there's real value in capturing just some high level data just so we know that we're hearing from everybody. Do Frost, do you think that that or I mean really opposed to anyone, but do you think when we you know I imagine if we um some of these early meetings may
be harder to gauge, but if we meet with Rotary, I feel like we kind of have >> a fairly good idea about what their interests might be. Although some of them will be parents also or grandparents or you know, so I don't know. Yeah, I mean the the meeting will
provide some of that information, but uh there may be meetings where that's not indicative of their relationship with the school district as as Pete described it. >> In trying to we were going to do a frequency analysis, but it won't be just purely an arithmetic exercise, just
adding up what's mentioned the most. And there's something that's inherently subjective about taking that data and drawing from it values. And um so I I don't know
how we, you know, we'll all have different opinions. We'll look at the same body of facts and uh be hard to divorce ourselves from our own sentiments about values as we we sort through them. But it it'll be more than
just arithmetic. Adding up who said something the most. And um I think some basic information would would be helpful. uh don't want to overweight parents or don't want to overweight employers looking for a skilled
workforce. Um but just >> some basic information would be helpful. >> Yeah, I I I want the information but just to ensure that we've heard from everybody, right? So I think we use that information to keep ourselves in check
to make sure that we've listened to the entire community. So I So I'm hearing people say different things. I'm hearing what you just said was I would want to use the information as part of our process check which is very different from what I heard PTO say
which I want to use the information uh as part of our uh semantic analysis. Those are two radically different uses and they're both uh legitimate if that's what you want to do. But I just highlighted what I hear you all saying are very very different things. And so I
just nudge you all if you want to discuss this a little bit to try to figure out kind of uh where you all kind of land collectively on this and we will try to infer from that. Um um and that is what will plug into the sample uh the
rough draft script that we deliver back to you. Um and so we're still listening for that. But just know that I'm currently hearing very different things. >> You can do both with it. That's correct. >> Um, >> says
get some spells. >> Anybody else want to be heard on this topic of what what should go in the script um or in general or uh data collection specifically? Anybody else? Do we have a what is the attitude on
collecting some >> uh information about the respondents? >> I'd like to go ahead and talk that through so y'all could have have guidance. >> I think that I um I would lean more towards what Jay said, but I to your point if we don't collect it, we don't
have a choice anyway. So maybe best to collect it. >> And if we collect it, how much? you know, if you're doing a poll, you collect a whole lot of data. For our purposes, uh what's and we don't want to spend a whole lot of time on it either. We we don't have that much time with
these audiences. What would be the the basic data that we >> we would like to know about each person? >> I I don't I don't know the data. I mean, do you have a >> this goes into the receipt of school? >> This goes into the receipts piece,
right? When somebody's saying, "Well, who did you talk to?" We can say, "Hey, we we spoke to this group and that group." >> Yeah. >> AJ's laughing. I just I just I want that as a receipt. >> Oh, it's going to happen. >> Yeah. Right. And I just want to say this is who we spoke. We we got the community's input when we said we want
>> we want this guard rail. That That's my only purpose for having that data. Could you ask like what what um as a community member, how who do you identify with most? A parent, an employer,
um a grandparent, you know, >> taxpayer. >> I don't think I'd want to ask if they were a taxpayer, >> but >> Okay, fair point. But I think parent, grandparent, um, employer,
>> um, did you go to the Fort Worth? >> You know, I do think the parent, non-parent, do you have a kid in school now? >> Anybody who has a kid sees the world differently because of that kid or their
those kids. and uh >> I'd like to know if they had a >> they had a kid in school and just and we would know that you know out of our thousand people we talked to and little bit to what Jay suggesting but just want
to make sure we've heard from enough people who have flesh and blood in the game um >> as well as the other interests people have skilled workforce you know, I run a restaurant. I can't
get kids to come here and work. You know, you So, I mean, not not the kind of questions you'd ask a jury pool, but >> could we agree on >> parent kid in school, kid in the Fort
Worth ISD? >> Uh, what else? just >> you know I was just as having originally suggested this my bias is I think we should collect some of it. I appreciate AJ your point about having a plan to use
it. I think again at a minimum that that baseline sense of have we touched our bases the I think is is to me a a good use and so I would I would do it. I don't think we have to it has to be a disquisition the specific things again AJ I guess I'd also be interested in
kind of do you have a sense of where districts have put that information to good use so if there's other information beyond what Pete described the uh that you would think like you know sometimes schools have found it beneficial to know whatever that might be something for you guys to put in the draft.
Yeah, the the probably the single most common things that people that boards have wanted to know have been some of the things you all discussed. Uh they've wanted to know um you know parent versus staff versus community member. They wanted to know uh race. Uh they've
wanted to know uh soio economic factors. They wanted to know languages spoken. U and for all the reasons you all described. Some of them wanted to use that justice process checks. have we made sure we've heard from all of these different segments. Um but some of them
wanted to use it as part of uh the semantic frequency analysis u you know and actually you know bucketing responses um based on respondent um and so I think all of that is reasonable choices but
you but those are choices I cannot make. I do not represent the vision values of your community. um you all need to decide what information do we need in order to um demonstrate legitimacy in the eyes of our community. Um and if we
captured that uh data, how would we use it? Uh so those those are the fundamental questions uh that I'd encourage you to wrestle with uh right now as we're going through this. Um and let's let's give this um you know maybe seven more minutes uh before we
transition uh to a different topic. Uh uh so what else on the topic of data capture? Uh what would you want to capture or not? Um if not, why not? If so, what specifically what uh get let's get down to brass tax. What specifically
would you want to capture? Um and and how specifically would you propose it be used? Uh who else would like to be heard on this topic? >> Have you have Have you seen the generally speaking, me personally, I like the idea of data capture. I do have concerns that depending on how we do that, it leads to interpretation before
we're supposed to get there. >> So, is have you seen maybe questionnaires used that you you have those for everyone that's there that you know is voluntary if they would like to fill those out and then you can correlate the name to the speaker later with the raw data without letting that
in any way cloud our judgment about what the person is saying when they have the mic and they're sharing their thoughts. >> Um, so this is interesting uh because I actually had to think back. I think I have seen one board capture
um question responses distinct from demographic participation data um so that they weren't paired so that they didn't have any capacity to say uh these were parents and they said x but they did have a capacity to say uh we we
heard x and uh we heard from y number of parents so I think I have seen one district that completely divorced the two. They just had one democratic demographic pack uh capture and that was entirely separate from the question capture. And so I have I think I've seen
that I don't think I've seen that more than once. I think I've seen that one time. Normally people uh have connected the two and then are thinking about using it as part of an analysis later. Uh but if you didn't if you wanted to avoid any potential kind of for bias um
in in that regard then yeah, you could capture them separately. they'd be completely divorced. You'd have one table for uh for uh demographic capture and one for data capture. Um and so yeah, you could do either of those.
>> I selfishly like that idea. I mean, you know, you I'm I'm envisioning folks walk in, maybe scan a QR code, tell us a little bit about yourself. they you you could do it in private and we get the information and we get to capture all the statistics about who was at the meeting and then and then that's
separate from the actual listening piece. >> And I'm worried about a chilling effect if we're asking people and the first five questions are what's your relationship to the district? You know, people that are out there that aren't parents may not be as willing to share because they start seeing parents share and they think, well, I don't have the same skin in the game as that person.
But our our task here, as I understand we've been tasked with it, is go and get as broad a swath of comments and feedback from the community as possible so that we have the biggest data set possible to identify the true visions and values of the community. And so I
mean again, personally, I'd love to know everything about everybody, but I do worry about chilling fact. I worry about bias on our end and interpreting immediately when those comments are made in the listening sessions where we're not supposed to be having that effect. that those are my concerns. >> Well, let me speak to that because I I
mean listening as AJ was trying to teach us earlier to listen. Uh it's going to be hard no matter what. I I don't know that knowing whether a person had a child in the district would make it any harder or not. I mean, it's something we're going to have to practice and and
going to have to get good at, but I'm I'm not persuaded that, you know, adding another level of challenge to um learning how to listen totally objectively uh would be a out outweigh the benefit
of of knowing something about the the people. But where do you draw the line? You know, do you get into race, ethnicity? I mean um you can presume something about socioeconomic level based on where where some of these are
hosted perhaps if um you know if the homeless shelter hosted something. Um but we're we're still going to just have to discipline ourselves to be objective listeners and then that's going to be darn hard. I don't think that that would make it that
much harder if that information would be useful. >> I guess my concern is that if people think that's a requirement and maybe there's a middle ground that's, you know, we as part of the introductory piece, we tell them you're welcome to share um basic information about you and your relationship to the district, but
you're not required to do so. >> Something along those lines. I think when we start making it come across as a requirement, we start putting in a possible chilling effect for people that are in the room. Well, you know, it's hard for us. This is a
tough setting to to try to come up with a consensus, but um that's an open-ended question and maybe that that is a good way to manage it. Tell us what your relationship is to the district or to Fort Worth. Um does that get us where we
need to be? you know. >> Um, so let's uh transition a few other uh logistical uh topics. >> AJ, before you leave, um, I I definitely want us to explore the value our
community places on literacy and numeracy and at grade level academic performance. Um, and to me that that's that's fundamental. You know, we we've come in this with a our charge is to improve
student outcomes. Do we have a community that cares about that? Do we have a community that cares if kids can read? Now, we >> we know from surveys that most everybody thinks everybody learns to read in school. It's, you know, you poll any
place in the country. Are the kids learning to read at XYZ ISD? It's always in the 90%. All of us in this room know the number is closer to a third and in some places it's closer to a fifth. Uh so is this a community that p places a
premium on literacy um and and numeracy that the two in my opinion and I'm showing my bias here but I'd like to know I think all of us care deeply about this are we on the same track with the community on on that on those issues. Do they care about student
academic outcomes? I I think we need to explore whether that in fact is is true. Do they care more about football? Um so h how do we get at the literacy um issue and some queries that that really mine people's appreciation for and I'm
showing my bias how important it is. Uh do they care about kids earning a living wage? Uh does that matter to this community? Do you want a child that goes to Forthd to be able to earn a living wage when he she graduates? Um, so I is,
you know, those are fundamental questions about what we're all about. And if we were to learn that no, everybody just, you know, cares about u football and and band, um, you know, so
maybe we we pay less attention to literacy. I I think we all hope the community shares our commitment to literacy, but how do we how do we test that? How do we explore that uh with our audience with the hope uh that they
share our strong opinion about the you know literacy is a civil right, literacy is fundamental. >> Yeah. Uh I I think you're correct. I I would join you. Uh my personal opinion would be that these are really fundamental questions. Um and I would
encourage that you absolutely not ask any of them. Uh that your way of testing uh what is on the heart of the folks in your community uh I would encourage it to be through asking open-ended questions and then see what they say.
Like if you ask people do you care about literacy you're going to get a very a lot of people who say yes to that. If you don't ask about that at all, you just ask people, you know, what is your vision for what kids should know and be able to do, then you'll find out what people actually say and either it will
be, you know, this priority or that priority or another priority. But I think asking the open-ended question will get you more authentically at what is on the hearts of people than asking a more uh leading question uh which I think will give you bias information.
asking a leading question but really probing. You know, there are there are towns in America that don't really care much about academics. They they just don't. And you know, you can see that in surveys. I do know from having particip or performed a lot of surveys both focus
groups and polling if you ask people open-ended questions about what do you think's important in the school and literacy will rarely show up on that list and the same poll will show that 96% of the people believe that
everybody's learning to read. If you follow up with a and tell them what would you think if only 33% of the kids can read. Now what do you think is the most important thing for a school? Literacy jumps to the top of the list. So we have a presumption as a society
that if a kid goes to school they learn to read. So it it does not pop up in open-ended questions. Uh you you have to do something to make them aware of the fact that most of our kids can't read. And you could ask a question. If you
learn that 33% of the kids in the forth is only 33% can read at grade level. Do you think that's a crisis? Is that a big deal? Uh >> so the so the closest that the closest I've seen a board come to what you're describing. Uh and again this is a board
decision. I think I generally come down against this personally, but I think it's a reasonable board decision to make is we have had boards that have provided a uh information uh like a one-pager about the district's current performance
level uh regarding its existing goals and guard rails if they have those. um as part of the pre-information they provide to community members leading up to the the actual listening session. So, I have seen them say, "Look, we want you
to have this one pager. It describes where we are performance-wise as a school system." Um now, we're going to ask a bunch of questions about what where do you want us to go over the next 10 years? Um and so it it definitely it had a very clear effect of a signaling
uh to the community uh uh a focus in areas of deficit um um and a you know kind of a less focus in areas of strength. Uh so I have seen boards do that before uh just put a one pager data overview um as part of the information
that's provided to participants before participation starts. Um, I generally would encourage against it. It feels leading to me, but I do think it's a fair game if that's what the board chooses to do. >> What What about something? So, my I had
questions such as um what should every Fortist student know, be able to do or experience by the time they graduate? Or what does it mean to be college, career, or military readiness? Are these the same outcomes? Would those question Well, I guess it isn't.
I'm not trying to elicit an answer, am I? That's leading then. So, never mind. >> Yeah, I I I think there are open slightly more open-ended uh versions of each of those questions, and we would generally counsel you in that direction.
Those are the questions you want to ask. You say, great, then ask them. But, uh let's let's pursue a slightly more open-ended version. Um uh for the sake of time, I want to transition, but I want to make this invitation. Uh you all have done a bunch of homework on this. Obviously you've came well prepared. So
bravo. Thank you for loving on the children of Fort Worth ISD by doing your homework. Um sadly that is not universal. So thank you for that. Um our request email all of that to us. So send us an email u uh with all of the uh
things that you've written down all the notes you've taken on this or whatever things that have come to mind as a result of this conversation. Um, and then we will take all that um, and by end of business next week, uh, at latest, uh, we'll we'll try to have that back to you. Uh, though we're going to
try to hustle much sooner because I know you've got a listening coming up. I think your first one's on the 22nd. Is that correct? >> When When is your next listening? >> Monday the 22nd. >> Okay. So, it is Monday. Um,
well, let me check with the team and see how quickly we can hustle to get you a rough draft. Um, it is unlikely that you uh as a board will have adopted a rough dra will have adopted a script by Monday. Uh, that that seems unlikely.
Um, you may have one that your officers have signed off on by Monday, but uh I think it's unlikely that you'll have one that the board has adopted by Monday. Um, and so just understand that that is kind of the risk you took uh when you authorize your staff to proceed with
publishing some dates. Um, is that um there's a possibility that you wouldn't be fully ready for the first of those. Uh, but I but I but but we will make an effort to on our part to hustle up to have you a rough draft um in time for that um for your officers to have
reviewed um and potentially use for that session. Um but uh but in order for that to happen, we would need you to email us all of your notes. Um preferably by noon tomorrow at the latest. So anything we receive from you by noon tomorrow, consider that will be part of our
discernment as we're putting together a rough draft. Anything we receive after that, uh expected it or won't be included. >> Um >> what email? >> Um have you all received I think you all received an email from Carol. Is that correct?
I I think you've all Can somebody confirm that that you all received email from Carol to line up your interviews? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Um just reply to that. Uh send an email back to Carol with whatever your uh whatever ideas you have either that you did in advance of tonight or that
you've kind of thought of in in response to this evening's conversation. uh email all that to Carol and then Carol uh Greg and I will um uh we'll circle up um and uh use that to create a rough draft as
quickly as we possibly can. Uh let's see uh survey. Um do you all also in addition to the script also want to use a survey as a form of data capture that would essentially mirror the script in every way practicable to do so.
Essentially this just allows for asynchronous participation um you know for folks who don't show up at a meeting. Um is that something that you would want to do or not want to do? >> To me that's important. I think it's it's an accessibility issue and and it should be an option.
>> Does anybody object to that? >> Okay. >> No, I >> think we got nobody objects. So, you got to >> n I I just want to know how how we control it. I I agree. But how do we control >> like someone getting in and and just
>> and and and if if we can't control it, to me that muddies the water. >> I will say that this is a this is a universal um issue with research survey capture there
like studies about studies about you know so it's just it's just one of those things you just >> you could use your demographic piece that we decide if we want to do like zip code are you a parent you can control it that way a little bit but you you cannot get rid of the
>> muddied water >> but to mitigate the muddy water you probably would need a ton of >> uh ton of inputs, right, in the sample because the more the more you have >> the in right, the more you have then but
but so I I >> I keep I keep thinking that if we let the folks >> like will it be some of the folks who've >> I think it's you ask your is it a question of to me it becomes a question of harm or who are we harming if we
don't allow that and to me that's the greater need is is access. >> Yeah, I think uh so this is a perfect example. Um and this is going to be a recurring thing. 100% of the decisions you make are going
to create harm. 100% of the decisions you all make as a body are going to create harm for someone somewhere. 100%. There will be no harmfree, no harmless, no perfectly only beneficial decisions for everybody
that you ever make. It will never ever happen. Every decision you make as a body is going to create harm for someone. It will always be a matter of trade-offs. And so that's what's happening here is you all just considering what are the pros and cons. You know, who are the beneficiaries? Uh
who bears the burden of it? Uh you know, what are the pros and cons? Uh pros and cons. What's the cost and benefits? Every single decision you make that is the analysis that you'll have to conduct. There will never be a decision that you all are asked to make where there where no one is uh experiences harm. Uh every single decision u
there'll be winners and losers. Um and so what you are discussing right now just get used to that experience of it will always be a matter of weighing uh weighing that out weighing the cost um and the amount of harm done for one group versus the amount of harm done for another. That is the inescapable reality
of school boards nationwide. Um, and it is one that kind of drives people, you know, slightly baddy. Uh, but there's not really a way around it. All there is is just to be as thorough in your work as you possibly can be earnest and discerning in your decision-m um and
then constantly monitor to make sure things are moving in the direction that you intend versus not. Uh, so that's the question of survey. Um, we'll also um uh put together a slide deck. You all will not be able to use a slide deck everywhere you go. Sometimes you will,
sometimes you won't. As you have any ideas about what should be on the said slide deck, please add that into your email that you send to us. Um um so anything that you think should be in a slide deck that um is a companion for the script. of recognizing that
sometimes you'll be able in a position to use a slide deck all your engagement sessions probably and sometimes you won't be in a position to use a slide deck many of your outreach sessions probably. Um but email us with any insights you have about what if there's
going to be a slide deck what should be in it. Um what else do we have here? >> Could you talk about slide deck? I mean it's slide there's slide decks and there's slide decks. Um, it's hard to have an opinion about it if you don't have experience with this kind of
session and have a feel for whether you think it would be a good thing or a bad thing. So, could you help us think that through the pros and cons of a slide deck? I mean, is it a slide that has the question up there? >> Yeah, the most common use is that it is
essentially a perfect mirror for your um uh for your script. So where this is where I think this is particularly helpful is when I'm facilitating essentially I'm asking the same question
over and over and over. Um and that becomes necessary in order to make sure that people continue responding to the same question as opposed to what often happens in these conversations is what people are responding to slides. The
first person answered the question that was asked, the second person answered the question that was implied by the response to the second person, the third person. And so you kind of get this telephone game and next thing you know, five questions in people are answering a totally different question. And so repeating the question multiple times,
you'll actually see this in the script. We'll literally put the script after every single person ask the question again so that you recalibrate them back to answering the original question, not answering a splinter question. What I find is that having a slide uh show that where you literally have a question up
on the screen also helps ground people to here's the question that's actually being asked that we're inviting people to respond to. And so typically when we use slid when we develop one it is a perfect uh analog uh for the script itself but recognizing that you won't
always have the ability to use one. >> So what's the con of having a slide deck? I'm persuaded by the way you >> answered. I don't know if anybody would object to having a slide deck, but that seems to me what you explained the value
of a slide deck is persuasive to me. >> Yeah. So, uh there there are definitely downsides. Um so, one downside is again you're not going to be offering the exact same uh quality of experience to every single audience. You know, some are going to get a slide deck, some won't. And that is a qualitative
difference in the quality uh in the experience that some folks will have. Another thing is uh you emphasize linguistic barriers. So you have a slideshow that's entirely in English. Um you know then that could have a chilling effect on participants for whom English is not their first language and they're
seeing the slides run by and they don't know what they don't know that they're missing. Uh I because if I if I don't speak English, there are slides going by. I know there's something that I'm not getting, but I don't actually know what it is that I'm not getting. It could have a chilling effect. And so, again, there there are pros and cons
either way. Uh you all just have to decide, you know, what makes the most sense for you all and uh and we'll go about executing on it. >> Could I move that we have a slide deck and have it be in English and Spanish and if there's a we're having a meeting
that would call for another language, we would have slides prepared in that language. >> I'll second that. Yes. >> Okay. We want a slide deck. >> No problem. >> English, Spanish, and other. >> All right. What do we got here? Observation, materials. Going through my
list to see what all uh we have not yet accomplished. Okay. Um so before we move on to some of the logistics, uh just one last thing. Um um um on, you know, kind of programmatic
issues. Um, you know, if you want to get better at throwing a football, you just got to get out here and throw a football. If you want to get better at playing the piano, you just got to get out here and hit some keys. Uh, and if you want to get better at really being effective at listening in this context, you just got to practice, practice,
practice. So, one of the things I encourage you to do is harass your friends and family um, for practice opportunities. Certainly encourage you to do that. But I'll just also let you know as your coaching team, we are super happy to make ourselves available uh, for practice sessions. So whether one-on-one or in small group, if you
want to get together and just practice the listening, uh not even necessarily specific script though, we'll also provide practicing script practice um later on. Um once you have finalized the script, uh we'll um we'll extend this invitation again. Um but if folks just
want to practice the listening, we're happy to hop on a Zoom uh and do some of the listening. We do this with other boards. It's a it's a normal thing. If that's something that you're interested in, just shoot us any any of the three of us an email. Uh, Carol, Gregor, uh, shoot us an email uh, and we'll gladly
schedule some time uh, to just practice where we'll just kind of throw sentences at you and you practice observing back what was said and back and forth and back and forth and then role playinging through some of your script when the time comes. So, if that type of practice would be helpful to you, just know that
that is a part of um, having access to coaches is that, you know, we're happy to happy to practice. Um so with that invitation uh we transition to the third uh leg of what I want to cover this evening which is to get into logistics
um which is predominantly about who are you going to listen to um and when um uh and and in which capacity is it uh is it engagement session or outreach session. So who you going to listen to and when is really uh the last major
kind of logistical question I wanted us to get into. Um, and so what I actually want to do, uh, is because the easiest thing to do is for you all to just email your spreadsheets, uh, in if you haven't already done so, uh, we'll work with your staff to, uh, crunch it all together, um, and then, uh, iterate
through with you all to narrow down which ones you're actually going to do. So, right now, really what I mostly want to accomplish is just, uh, do some out loud brainstorming. Um, and we'll try to capture some of this. Uh but then at the end of this again uh your homework that you did where you put together some
spreadsheets uh we'll ask you to email that to us. Um and then uh and we'll work with your staff to put all that together to create uh a list uh a dduplicated list of everybody's ideas. Uh but uh for the sake of brainstorming
uh the floor is open. Uh who are some examples of groups or um uh demographics organizations or just anything at all? Uh who's some some examples of folks that you want to
make sure are included in the listening? Um and should it be an outreach session uh one that you're going to their meetings or should it be engagement session that you're inviting these people uh to a meeting that you're having? And is that something that you
should aim for June, July, or August? Uh, so that's what I'm listening for. Who who should you listen to? Uh, is this more of an outreach session or engagement session? And we're talking more June, July or August that you're trying to be targeted for? Floor is open. Again, we're just brainstorming. Uh, nothing is in stone today. We're
writing in pencil, not pen. Uh, because uh, so what we talked about today is not representative necessarily of what will happen in reality. Uh, but right now we're just brainstorming. Uh who are some groups that you think uh we should probably uh do an intentional listening with? Is that a outreach session or
engagement session? Uh and kind of what timeline you think it makes the most sense. Floor is open. >> ETA >> AJ, do you have a copy of the the list of potential ones that have been submitted? I don't I
don't know if we end up talking off of that, but I just wanted to make sure you had seen it. Uh, I think it may have just been recently sent to you. Um, >> uh, uh, I can definitely pull it up if it's been sent to me. >> Okay.
>> So, I'll throw out the chambers of commerce, the Fort Worth Chamber, the Hispanic Chamber, and the Black Chamber. Um, to hear the business community. >> Well, >> um, are those outreach sessions or engagement sessions? uh outreach.
>> So, you're gonna have to go to them. Um and any idea is that more of a June and July or August thing? >> I feel like we don't have a lot of time, but it's probably going to be a July. >> Sounds like July is about to get busy, y'all.
>> Uh who else? >> You know, PTA's u outreach probably August when they're back in session, unless they're holding summer meetings. Gotcha. >> Including the including there's a special ed PTA
>> SEPTA. >> Maybe a lot of our immigrant refugees. >> Hold on. Hold on one one sec. We got two different conversations. Go ahead. You asked for a repetition. You were talking about SEPTA, the special ed PTA um and
having um and so inclusive of that PTA is in addition to building specific ones. Did I hear that correctly? >> Correct. >> All right. Oh yeah, please continue. >> Uh I said uh Catholic Charities so reaching out they they work with a lot
of our or have we might ask if they could help connect us with or if they would um create a space so that we could speak with um some of the communities that they serve, refugees, asylles, etc.
>> Uh refugee asylles uh that sounds more like an outreach session than an engagement session. Um, do you have a sense of the timeline? We talk about June, July, August. >> I would think closer to school would be a better time to capture families there.
>> That's right. >> Yeah. I I would say just the faith-based community in general. Um, I think they they could actually provide a space for us to uh visit uh and and have their
their their members come and um share their thoughts with us. timeline July, you know, >> and to tag on to that, I think we need to make sure we listen to all faiths, that we are diverse in in in our faiths,
and we don't just pick one over others, and we need to listen to all of them. >> The large youth service providers, uh, many of them have parent gatherings. um in August and early September. Um
Boys and Girls Clubs, Campfire, YMCA, Childcare Associates, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, very diverse populations that they serve. They're all over the all over the city. Uh I think that would be August.
Um >> and those would be out outreach. ask them to host something and perhaps get them to partner, not try to, you know, might be able to get Campfire and Boys and Girls Club to to come together and and look for ways to combine some of
these, but touch a lot of families. >> Um, >> and a very diverse population with those youth services organizations. >> Uh, as as a longtime volunteer, I would uh offer Boys and Girls Club. Uh, I'm
sorry. Big Brothers Big Sisters and CASA. >> Kasa of Taran County. >> KASA is a great one, too. >> Yeah, Big Brother Big Sisters is on there and we serve roughly 700 kids in Tarant County right now. So of that you're probably looking at three to 400
for ISD students. >> The large contractors, >> the large employers of labor in Taran County, the folks you see building the houses, building the buildings, that are sending their kids to our schools, who
don't come to these meetings, >> don't speak the language, >> but are a vital part of our community. >> We need to reach those people, too. and maybe working through some of the larger contractors, people who are employing
and gain their cooperation to make space available >> for us to go meet with their employees to talk about education to their children. >> Oh, what timeline? June, July, August. >> Did you have a specific one in mind?
>> Could you summarize? >> I'm saying all three months. >> I mean, we just got to it has to start and we got to continue. >> June start. >> Start June. >> Gotcha. Uh, who else? What do you have
in mind? Just brainstorm. >> I'll throw out leadership Fort Worth. Um the Rotary Club of Fort Worth. >> Um Fort, they show up at all of our meetings. I think four the council of PTAs
>> um braver together NAACP um pastors for children >> um I can keep going uh the Hispanic Women's Network um Arch de la Rosa Yeah, it's
>> Yeah, >> you know, it's somehow we're going to have to prioritize among you, think of the three months and make sure we um secure input from every
part of our community and you know going through this list and um we we just don't have much time. How do we I think we ought to look at grouping um some of these organizations and it um
you know if you look on this list the engagement side we can um one thing that's logistically very appealing are city community centers they have 26 around Fort Worth there in every single community very
representative and in the interest of time and being able to do something um that has minimal logistical challenges. I think we should think about those community centers as as um
vehicles. They can host their own or asking several organizations to come together and host something at a at a community center that's in their their region. Many >> or or you all or you all could uh it could be an engagement session that just isn't at a school. you all could host it
at a community center um and just invite all the adjacent uh feeder patterns, community partners, neighborhood associations, things of that nature. That that is not an uncommon strategy. >> Yeah. >> Um Pete um Carol Clochek offered center for for transforming lives facility as
an option. Um John Barnett also offered the new Fort Worth Museum of African-American Art. Um those were both spaces that have been offered to us. I I'd like to step in on on a couple things as we're getting near. Uh first
and foremost, a lot of the people we need to hear from won't come to us. I'm going repeat that. A lot of the folks we need to hear from won't come to us for various reasons. And I know we'll have uh a lot of the faces we know and that's welcomed. We we certainly welcome
that. But we have a lot of students in this district that we we don't hear from their families very often. And I think most of the reason if not all the reasons we're up here is for that very purpose. So let's let's keep that in mind. Um I am going to make sure that I
try and do that as well with my community engagement. The other piece I want to talk about is I said this before and I'll say it again. The nine people that surround me are pretty much encapsulate with best things about Fort Worth. All of you well respected um doing this
on your own because you believe in something. >> I think when we get to these details in the box of of parameters that uh AJ has provided which is awesome. I think sometimes we need to just look internally and say what is best for Fort Worth. >> What would we you are Fort Worth, we are
Fort Worth. What what is best for that and how do we approach it from that perspective? uh because uh that's why all of you are here and and I I know you're all struggling with getting specifics and really being narrowing down and penciling down, but I think if you step back just a hair and look back
at the bigger and look and say, "What is what does Fort Worth want? >> How do they want us to come to them and just go from there?" I think that sometimes may may make it a lot more simpler because I hear us all struggling about what's specifics and and I don't think AJ gave us specifics. He gave us
something to work with, a box of parameters. And I think if there's any nine people in this Fort Worth ISD that knows Fort Worth, it's it's y'all. So, I would go with that. >> You know, and Dr. Lacata, your first
point, a lot of people won't come to us. And, you know, the second two pages are are outreach. So what I'm hearing you say we really ought to emphasize outreach and then go into the into the communities make it most convenient and you know I I know some organizations
will you know provide child care and um and serve a light meal to enable people to come on on weekday nights. So, um I I think we all take to heart the
importance of reaching people where they are. And I guess with that, um inclination, um look more at the the outreach list and think about moving
some of the ones from the engage I mean, pardon me, um moving ones from the engagement list to outreach. Um the you know there were two Excel tabs, one for outreach and one for engagement.
But um recognizing that >> if we want to place a priority on going to people and when we think about the little time that we have focus more on going into the neighborhoods and the organizations that we can help host
things there. Other reflections? Anybody else before we transition? >> Um then my request is again by uh lunch tomorrow, please email us um um with any
other ideas you have about outreach or engagement sessions uh about um and any rough idea of when you think it makes sense uh when it's best for them to take place. uh we talk we talk about June, July, August um and we will
work with your staff uh to try to create a list of all these organize it. Um and then the next step in this process is that when we have that master list of all of the recommended outreach and uh sessions, all the recommended engagement
sessions. Uh what we will do is we will send it to the nine of you individually and have you put your initials essentially next to all of the ones that you would be willing to be one of the two board members who uh uh goes to uh
do the listening for uh for that session. So whether it's outreach session, engagement sessions, you'll just go through the full list and you just put your initials next to all of the ones where you'd be willing to be uh one of the two board members. Now we'll have uh column one of we'll have board
member one and board member two. uh board member one uh if you put your initials in uh the column for board member one what you are saying is I am committing that uh if we host this session I will take responsibility for making sure that we connect with uh this
community partner that uh that I am working with the school district staff uh you know if it's engagement that I'm probably that I'm working with school district staff if it's outreach that I'll be the one uh making sure that we connect with a community partner And so if you put your name down to be
board member one, uh you are taking on uh a additional logistical uh accountability. Uh that doesn't mean you personally are choosing to be responsible for all of it uh for for actually implementing every piece of it,
but you are choosing to be accountable for ensuring that the implementation got gets done, whether through your own hands or through the hands of someone else. Um, and so, uh, there is a little bit of extra work associated with signing up to be board member one, but you can sign up to be board member one
or board member two. In all's case, we'll probably add a board member three. Um, um, in case folks want to do that. U, but generally most of your sessions would have just two, maybe three board members, unless you all decided to take a dividing. If you feel like this is
going to be a massive session, uh we should have, you know, more board members there to have multiple breakout groups, um then that would be the case. Um but that's the next step is you all are going to actually have to put your name on the dotted line and say here here are the ones I'd be willing to do.
Then we'll work with your staff to take all of your nine spreadsheets and put them together. And what will be revealed is there will be some that have at least two names, some that only have one and some that have none. And at that point,
that finalized version of that document will provide back to you. Um, and you'll essentially have about 24 hours uh to make any uh we'll send it out to you individually, the nine of you, and you'll essentially have about 24 hours to make any modification. U because
there will be ones that have two, which means this session is definitely happening. There will be ones that only have one person signed up, which means this session is not happening unless somebody else adds their name to it, unless somebody modifies in the next 24 hours. And there'll be some that have none, which means this is almost certainly not happening unless two
people sign up for it in the next 24 hours. Um, and so that will then determine how many actual sessions there are based on how many you all sign up for. At that point, there will be some uh that are orphaned. And then exactly as Pete described earlier, uh we would
encourage you to go back and pair up ones that did not get two uh board members to sign up for. Uh which of those could we combine with ones that did get two board members to sign up for? So that is the process. The way that you'll decide how many sessions you
have, it really comes down to how much work is each of you willing to sign up for. Um, and that will uh shake itself out in the spreadsheet and then we'll know uh we'll know what we know. Um, and so our request is that um any additional
ideas that you have about what should be on the spreadsheet uh different groups you should uh have outreach engagement sessions with you have that to us by noon uh tomorrow at the absolute latest. That'd be the latest that you get that list, any modifications to that list back to us and we'll work with your
staff to then put all that together and send it back out to you by uh let's see, noon tomorrow is Thursday to send it back out to you by end of business on Friday. So, you get that end of business on Friday. Uh we would request that you get it back to us uh filled in. Here are
the here are the ones where I'm signing up to be board member one. Here are the ones where I'm signing up to be board member two. that you have that back to us by noon on Monday. So, you got the whole weekend to play with it, but that by noon on Monday, you get that back to us. Um, send it uh email back to us.
We'll work with your staff on it. Um, and then turn and then collate all nine of those again and then get that turned back around to you by noon on Tuesday. So, then noon on Tuesday, you will see here are the ones that are definitely happening because there are already two people who signed up. Here are the ones that are not necessarily happening
because there's only one signed up. here are the ones that are not necessarily happening because no one signed up. And then we'll ask you to u any modifications you make, get that back to us by noon, 24 hours, get that back to us by noon on Wednesday. Um and then we'll again crunch that and then that
will tell us which sessions have at least two people. They're definitely happening. Which sessions did not get two people. Um um and then try to identify which of those can be combined with sessions that did. And then the resulting document which means you'll
have that by uh by next Friday. Uh the resulting document will say here are all the listening sessions that you all have identified for your uh as your plan for conducting a listening. Now, as I mentioned, it was asked earlier, you know, later on if you find out that we
missed something, can you add? Yes. Uh, but generally speaking, the plan is the plan. And so, we just encourage you sign up for all the ones that you're willing to do. Um, um, and don't sign up for ones you're not willing to do. Um, and then we'll
see what the confluence of all that is across the nine of you. Um and by next Friday uh you will have a sense of what are the sessions and then once you have that then the real work begins of working with you all to start organizing all the sessions working with staff to
organize all the engagement sessions and working with community partners to organize all the outreach sessions. So, I've just ran through a uh very very rapid timeline with you all having very hard deadlines coming up very rapidly
over the next uh nine days. What questions do you have? And by the way, you'll get an email. >> Did you write a written summary of that for us? >> I as I said, you'll get an email with this. You won't have to remember all this. Um uh what questions do you have?
Well, and we need to stay after after you leave, but we have not uh combined all the different lists. >> The one, you know, we have one list, it's one person's list, >> and we've gotten several other people
have have put together lists. I don't know how many of them are are duplicates, but I suggest after AJ signs off because, you know, we'll have close to 150 here and we need >> and and our request is that you all have all of that and have gone to adding
whatever people need to add as a result of this evening's brainstorming, but have all of that back to us. Um, all nine of you uh uh emailed back to us. um probably us and Kushner uh probably um simultaneously uh email that back to us
uh by noon tomorrow at the latest and then we will do the combine at that point. >> Dr. Eninsler has sent all the lists to you earlier this evening while you were on so you probably haven't seen it. They've been emailed. Dr. Eninsler, is that correct? You've combined them all.
And does all the board members have copies of everyone else's list as well? You have the hard copies as well. >> Uh then again any mod any modifications you all we've gone through this now some of you have already thought of some new
things that you that were not on your original list. >> I kept handing you a list. >> So update your list to whatever degree you intend to email them back. Uh it sounds like uh Dr. Enzar uh and I are the people that email email them back to us. Um oh I'm sorry you've got Carol's
email. I don't know that you all have mine. So email it to Dr. Enzar and Carol uh by noon tomorrow any modifications to the list that you've sent in previously. It sound I suspect most of you probably have some amount of tweaks and modifications by now. And so that is the request by noon tomorrow have that
emailed in to Dr. Enzar and Carol and then we will uh work with your staff to put them all together and get this process rolling uh with the intention of having a fairly durable uh final draft back to you by next Friday. >> Okay.
There's a bunch of steps. >> Thanks. We're You've given us a big assignment. >> Oh, yeah. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of work to do. >> Thanks, AJ. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, AJ. Going to work now. >> You all have a blessed rest of your evening as there's any other way we can
be of service. Don't hesitate to hit us up. >> Thanks. Thank you. you know, we I haven't seen hard copy everybody's list of of organizations. Uh I think we're going to have to go
through this tonight before everybody leaves and decide on, you know, 20 priorities or 30 priorities. I don't, you know, this is like 130 right here and and I'm sure there's overlap with other people's list, but
Dr. Ensar, could we get hard copies of everything so we can go through this tonight and say, "Okay, here's the 30 that we want to emphasize because I, you know, if we go through 150 or 200, it's just it's not going to we're not going
to coalesce and we do it randomly without having any communication with each other. It's it's likely we won't have many twos on any of them." >> I don't disagree. What we could do process-wise is again like start with you know again go down the line or whatever you want to do start with you
or whoever and identify what are you know the five key ones and then we kind of talk through those I get the challenge but otherwise I'm not sure how you would coalesce to 30 otherwise >> well I you know here's the thought if we can get a hard copy list we can go
through and and um you know you rate it a >> one two or three >> well but I mean, as as as well tricky, risky as it can be. I mean, AJ said, you know, put your name by the one you desire,
right? And if you if and if we have some where, you know, they're left out, then we probably need to revisit it. I I don't see how well one is I I don't know that everybody has a copy of all
the lists, but we have a you know I don't know how many this is. >> Oh, that's my 14. >> This is mine. These four pages. >> I don't I don't I don't have it. Um, I
don't see how overnight by noon tomorrow without our setting some priorities that that's going to come together. I, you know, we can run through these lists and if two people say, "Okay, I'll do that one." Um, and then once we've,
you know, do we want to try to say 40 meetings between now and the end of September? Do we want to say 30 meetings? Um, >> what's our >> Oh, AJ reappeared. >> He's back. >> Oh, pardon me, AJ. I thought you were signed off.
>> Um, I was. Um, what, um, thank you for recognizing me for a second. U,, I hear what you all are trying to do. Um, and you can do it this way obviously if you want it. Um, I generally don't recommend it. What I I would recommend that you
all consider the approach that I've suggested um which will reveal a winnowing and a narrowing down um but it'll do so more organically. Uh it is a little bit more lengthy because there
are multiple steps. So you all can do it the way I hear you describing it right now where you're kind of identifying what's a finite number and then can we combine them into it. uh that is a much faster process than what I'm describing. Um but uh I I wouldn't recommend it. I I
would recommend you consider uh the more organic path that I've described where everybody is submitting things. We create a list and then we send it out to everybody and then everyone signs up and then we figure out what the result of that is um and then uh and proceed from
there. That being said, I will go back off screen. uh you all can make a decision, but if you want to do it the way you're doing it, so be it. If you want to if you want us to kind of help marshall and facilitate this, we're also happy to do so the way we've described it.
>> Does it change? You know, we have over 200 on this list. And we going to have 30 meetings between now and the end of the year. I mean, now in September, is it going to be 40? Um >> and so that's the challenge is I don't
think any of you know and I and I would suggest that the best way of knowing is going through the process we described where people are signing up for things and then we'll find out what you all signed up for. Maybe you all collectively sign up for 10, maybe you
all collectively sign up for 50. I I don't know. Um and but the problem is neither do you. uh that that's the problem you're facing right now is you're trying to bring clarity to something um and the approach that you're taking is a reasonable approach. You're essentially enforcing clarity
saying this is let's aim for this number and then let's try to uh coales around that. What we're saying is same a same intention but coming at it from a different direction. Let's come at it from the direction of what are people willing to sign up for and then see what number that gives us. Um and so again
the both of them are different ways of solving the problem. Uh but but I think uh but uh but uh I just think you're going to you'll run into some challenges trying to set especially with as many sessions as people have written down. Uh you're
going to run into some problems either way. Uh but if you all want to handle it more quickly, I think that's perfectly fine. Uh but if you want, we're happy to help hustle logistics for you. It will take a little bit longer. Um uh but I think it'll be easier in the long run
because then you'll have you'll have people who have signed up for the things that they're willing to sign up for and that will be the forcing function not a set number of meetings being the forcing function. >> We'll go with your advice. You know wish
we had 50 where we're choosing a among instead of 200 and um without any kind of discussion among ourselves about what our priorities are. Um, but we'll go with your advice. >> Well, and what will happen is your priorities will shake out. Um, it'll be
but it'll shake out as a result of the work that you all sign up for. And then there will be a remnant that aren't that didn't get people to sign up for. And then the next task is, okay, so we got people to sign up for 40. Uh, and here's the remnant. Here are the ones that
didn't make it to the 40. Which ones can we pair with those 40 so that they aren't excluded? uh but that u but that they're they're matched up that way. Um but you may find that uh the the bene one of the benefits of doing it the more
organic way is you may find that realistically people only willing to collectively do 20. You want to know that uh because there's no point in trying to round up 40 if people are only willing to do 20 or you may find that people ultimately sign up for more and
you actually you you do have 40. Um, and so, uh, but, but I I think if you, it is a little bit slower, like I said, cuz if you do it the way we're describing, I don't think we're going to have a real answer until next Friday. Uh, but, uh, and so there is a huge benefit of using
the number as a forcing function because then you will get an answer much more quickly. Uh, uh, but that that that's on you all to decide kind of which is more the priority. Do we really need to have this list A SAP? in which case you should probably just pick a number and then rally you know rally your list
around that or you know do we need to figure out what is the actual workload this board is willing to take on and let that be the forcing function in which case it'll take a little bit longer uh but then you'll know that number more clearly >> all right thank you
>> u I will uh uh sign back off um and I will just wait to hear from you all uh kind of what makes sense and where we can be useful and we'll go from there. >> Okay. Well, our due out due out number one noon tomorrow is put our name beside
some number of these um on these lists. That's that's what we owe you by noon. >> Uh by noon tomorrow is any modified list cuz oddly enough I realize you already have a huge list. >> I didn't understand you. What what's what do we owe you by noon tomorrow? the
B1 B2 >> any no any modifications to the existing list. I've what I've heard in this conversation and some people have brainstormed some additional things they hadn't thought of earlier. So your list of 200 will probably balloon to 210 or something. Uh that is the due uh by
tomorrow. Then we put all that together and we give it back to you uh um by end of business Friday. And then by Monday is when you all provide the sign up for board member one, board member two. By noon on Monday is when that would be due. >> Okay. I I misunderstood. I thought that
tomorrow So all we owe you tomorrow is a list of everybody's names. Uh every >> or Yep. Uh what whatever each of you individually think, send that in and then we will put all that together and get you that master list by end of
business Friday. And then by noon Monday, everybody needs to have signed up for whatever you're going to sign up for. >> Oh, great. I misunderstood. I thought we were supposed to uh identify our choices by noon tomorrow. That was what I was trying to >> Okay.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh that that Yeah, that'd be a little bit rough on you all. Uh giving you all the weekend gives you a little bit more spaciousness. And and what I've described, I will I I'll email out to you this evening. So you all will have in writing the timeline that I've described between today and next Friday.
>> Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Then have a good one. >> We'll be able to sleep tonight now. Thanks. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, all he's asking for is send in all of our list of suggestions. And
Lisa, I guess >> the I just reference that. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Oh, great. Okay. Well, that's easy. >> That work? >> Yes.
>> Yeah. >> Okay. Well, then we in in effect have done that. I mean, if people want to add some um how many people have you and and you some people may have looked at the list and thought, well, everybody I thought of is on there, so I don't need to add.
>> Um so I guess we'll everybody can look at what we already have. If you want to add to that, add to >> there's a lot of duplicates. >> A lot of duplicates. Yeah, of course there would be. >> I would I'm thinking about what Dr. Lata said to like people who we um
prioritizing pe people that we don't hear from you know I mean that that's what I will look for actively look for people that I I don't talk to I don't know >> and listen to those people. No, >> that's good that you
>> underline that. That's >> Oh, did you want me to do That's loud. Okay. I was saying I think that I will uh take uh Dr. Lacata's advice to heart and look as we generate this list and as we sign up for what we're available for,
I'm going to actively look for organizations and communities that I don't regularly associate with um just in my daily life. U because those are the those that's the vision and values I haven't heard from yet. And I think that
might be a good tactic for all of us to do as we look at what we're available to um people we're available to meet with. I think so though I also thought there was something to the you know this group what we are or not in terms of Fort Worth and thinking about what is
important for Fort Worth in terms of which voices do we want to make sure we are I do think the voices we don't hear as part of that but I do think there'll be voices that we hear from regularly but you know fort we hear from you know whatever 12 times a meeting but I do think it's again important to sort of engage them even though we know we hear
from so I consider that too >> no that's true yeah >> okay >> one one question I had and Pete you were touched on us about the literacy thing and if if you don't give a baseline maybe you don't get the answers that you know need to be or the the input that needs to be there. He mentioned people using a one pager with the star results
coming out literally this week. I mean, it seems like to me I think it'd be a good idea for us to have a one pager that's kind of just a state of the educational um you know or the forth ISD educational state of being right now is this here's your one pager here's our
star results here's how kids are performing not to use for the questions we can ask the questions however we want but just so that everybody has that in the audience because again some of the people that we need to get to are probably some of the people that aren't actively going out and seeking that data they may not have it
>> we could have that for you in moments Yeah. >> Yeah, that's easy. >> That's a that's a good idea. >> Nothing too deep. Just >> Yeah. >> Because you know there's there is not unonymity on the importance of literacy. I can tell you that we we do a lot of polling in this area and in certain
regions they they just don't prioritize it. And um and so you know we have said we're all about student outcomes, student academic outcomes. And I don't expect we're going to have a city that doesn't believe that that's a top priority, but
there are some cities in Texas where it wouldn't be a top priority. Um, so anyhow, I I hope we at least get a resounding affirmation of student outcomes being important. So >> I know it'll get him in trouble, but you know, at lawyers, we talk about the 10th
justice is the solicitor general of the of the United States. I feel like Jacob is the 10th manager. the um you know as he sits here you know to the bitter end let's give him some credit the power the
>> yes yes >> is that coffee or beer >> okay >> we've reached the interactive part of the the show >> all right thank everybody and Lisa thank you for carrying such a heavy load and Lewis. Both of y'all have done an
unbelievable job of this. >> Have to adjourn. >> Okay, pardon me. We do have to officially adjourn. >> Let me make sure I get it exactly right. Okay, we have concluded all the matters
on our agenda uh for tonight's workshop. I'd like to close by saying thank you to all the community members who are here. Want to particularly thank the ISD staff for their support of of this evening and all
the the work that they've done. um participate um the work that y'all are going to do to to make this work. We've we've bitten off a big task, but we all know how important it is. We are embarking on one
of the most critical parts of developing our ability to effectively lead this school district and this these listening sessions are critically important to that. Um, thank everybody for your commitment to making those happen and making them be effective. As there's no
further business, the time is 9:23. Meeting is adjourned. >> That one's fast. >> We're going to fix that clock. >> Yeah. Particularly with Heat. Heat.